It would be naïve to imagine that any analysis of experience is dependent on pattern expressed in language. Any concept, whether or not it forms part of the system of grammatical categories, can be conveyed in any language. If a notion is lacking in a given series, it implies a different configuration and not a lack of expressive power.

No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality.

It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection.

What fetters the mind and benumbs the spirit is ever the dogged acceptance of absolutes.

Impatience translates itself into a desire to have something immediate done about it all, and, as is generally the case with impatience, resolves itself in the easiest way that lies ready to hand.

Human beings do not wish to be modest; they want to be as expressive - that is, as immodest - as fear allows; fashion helps them solve that paradoxical problem.

Cultural anthropology is not valuable because it uncovers the archaic in the psychological sense. It is valuable because it is constantly rediscovering the normal.