I have never known so much naive conviction allied to greater intellectual poverty.

With all its technical sophistication, the photographic camera remains a coarse device compared to the human hand and brain.

All the essentials of humanity's artistic treasures can be found in New York.

Nor must we forget that in science there are no final truths.

In the old days, people used to risk their lives in India or in the Americas in order to bring back products which now seem to us to have been of comically little worth, such as brazilwood and pepper, which added a new range of sense experience to a civilization which had never suspected its own insipidity... From these same lands our modern Marco Polos now bring back the moral spices of which our society feels an increasing need as it is conscious of sinking further into boredom, but that this time they take the form of photographs, books, and travelers tales.

Scientific knowledge advances haltingly and is stimulated by contention and doubt.

The dogma of cultural relativism is challenged by the very people for whose moral benefit the anthropologists established it in the first place. The complaint the underdeveloped countries advance is not that they are being westernized, but that the westernization is proceeding too slowly.