Music is a language by whose means messages are elaborated, that such messages can be understood by the many but sent out only by few, and that it alone among all the languages unites the contradictory character of being at once intelligible and untranslatable - these facts make the creator of music a being like the gods.
Claude Levi-StraussThere is one fact that can be established. The only phenomenon which, always and in all parts of the world, seems to be linked with the appearance of writing
Claude Levi-StraussI can't help thinking that science would be more appealing if it had no practical use.
Claude Levi-StraussCivilization has ceased to be that delicate flower which was preserved and painstakingly cultivated in one or two sheltered areas of a soil rich in wild species ... Mankind has opted for monoculture; it is in the process of creating a mass civilization, as beetroot is grown in the mass. Henceforth, man's daily bill of fare will consist only of this one item.
Claude Levi-Strauss