The happiest excitement in life is to be convinced that one is fighting for all one is worth on behalf of some clearly seen and deeply felt good, and against some greatly scorned evil. Ruth Benedict More Quotes by Ruth Benedict More Quotes From Ruth Benedict Society in its full sense ... is never an entity separable from the individuals who compose it. No individual can arrive even at the threshold of his potentialities without a culture in which he participates. Conversely, no civilization has in it any element which in the last analysis is not the contribution of an individual. Ruth Benedict analysis society civilization What really binds men together is their culture, the ideas and the standards they have in common. Ruth Benedict together men ideas Faith is the virtue of the storm, just as happiness is the virtue of sunshine. Ruth Benedict storm sunshine spiritual Success and failure in our own national economy will hang upon the degree to which we are able to work with races and nations whose social order and whose behavior and attitudes are strange to us. Ruth Benedict race success attitude I gambled on having the strength to live two lives, one for myself and one for the world. Ruth Benedict gamer two world ... with every Asiatic country where we operate in cooperation with the existing culture, the need for intelligent understanding of that country and its ways of life will be crucial. These nations will very likely not respond to appeals with which we are familiar, and not value rewards which seem to us irresistible. The danger--and it would be fatal to world peace--is that in our ignorance of their cultural values we shall meet in head-on collision and incontinently fall back on the old pattern of imposing our own values by force. Ruth Benedict ignorance country fall The adequate study of culture, our own and those on the opposite side of the globe, can press on to fulfillment only as we learn today from the humanities as well as from the scientists. Ruth Benedict humanity opposites culture If we justify war, it is because all peoples always justify the traits of which they find themselves possessed, not because war will bear an objective examination of its merits Ruth Benedict examination bears war I haven't strength of mind not to need a career. Ruth Benedict careers mind needs In a day of footloose movements of people and of mixed marriages in the ancestry of the most desirable elements of the community we preach unabashed the gospel of the pure race. Ruth Benedict community race people Virtue begins when we dedicate ourselves actively to the job of gratitude. Ruth Benedict gratitude thank-you jobs We grow in time to trust the future for our answers. Ruth Benedict aging spiritual answers The crucial differences which distinguish human societies and human beings are not biological. They are cultural. Ruth Benedict differences humans culture The life history of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation to the patterns and standards traditionally handed down in his community Ruth Benedict patterns community firsts Traditional Anglo-Saxon intolerance is a local and temporal culture trait like any other. Ruth Benedict anglo-saxon intolerance culture So much of the trouble is because I am a woman. To me it seems a very terrible thing to be a woman. There is one crown which perhaps is worth it all--a great love, a quiet home, and children. We all know that is all that is worthwhile, and yet we must peg away, showing off our wares on the market if we have money, or manufacturing careers for ourselves if we haven't. Ruth Benedict marriage home children ... it is a commonplace that men like war. For peace, in our society, with the feeling we have then that it is feeble-minded to strive except for one's own private profit, is a lonely thing and a hazardous business. Over and over men have proved that they prefer the hazards of war with all its suffering. It has its compensations. Ruth Benedict lonely war peace The mere fact of leaving ultimate social control in the hands of the people has not guaranteed that men will be able to conduct their lives as free men. Those societies where men know they are free are often democracies, but sometimes they have strong chiefs and kings.they have, however, one common characteristic: they are all alike in making certain freedoms common to all citizens, and inalienable. Ruth Benedict freedom strong kings Society in its full sense . . . is never an entity separable from the individuals who compose it. Ruth Benedict entity individual War is, we have been forced to admit, even in the face of its huge place in our civilization, an asocial trait. Ruth Benedict faces war civilization
