Franz Boas Quotes

Franz Boas speaks plainly about culture, integrity and psychology, urging readers to question assumptions.

15 quotes

1. The passion for seeking the truth for truth's sake...can be kept alive only if we continue to seek the truth for truth's sake.

2. The behavior of an individual is determined not by his racial affiliation, but by the character of his ancestry and his cultural environment.

3. No one has ever proved that a human being, through his descent from a certain group of people, must of necessity have certain mental characteristics.

4. If we were to select the most intelligent, imaginative, energetic, and emotionally stable third of mankind, all races would be present.

5. We do not discuss the anatomical, physiological, and mental characteristics of man considered as an individual; but we are interested in the diversity of these traits in groups of men found in different geographical areas and in different social classes.

6. Courtesy, modesty, good manners, conformity to definite ethical standards are universal, but what constitutes courtesy, modesty, good manners, and definite ethical standards is not universal. It is instructive to know that standards differ in the most unexpected ways.

7. The existence of any pure race with special endowments is a myth, as is the belief that there are races all of whose members are foredoomed to eternal inferiority.

8. This idea was also brought out very clearly by Wallace, who emphasized that apparently reasonable activities of man might very well have developed without an actual application of reasoning.

9. Its [the anthropological method] power to make us understand the roots from which our civilization has sprung, that it impresses us with the relative value of all forms of culture, and thus serves as a check to an exaggerated valuation of the standpoint of our own period, which we are only too liable to consider the ultimate goal of human evolution, thus depriving ourselves of the benefits to be gained from the teachings of other cultures and hindering an objective criticism of our own work.

10. Not so the scientist. The very essence of his life is the service of truth.

11. Remember that in every single case in history the process of adaptation has been one of exceeding slowness. Do not look for the impossible, but do not let your path deviate from the quiet and steadfast insistence on full opportunities for your powers.

12. It is clear, from these considerations, that the three methods of classifying mankind-that according to physical characters, according to language, and according to culture-all reflect the historical development of races from different standpoints; and that the results of the three classifications are not comparable, because the historical facts do not affect the three classes of phenomena equally. A consideration of all these classes of facts is needed when we endeavour to reconstruct the early history of the races of mankind.

13. In other words, we are interested in the anatomical and mental characteristics of men living under the same biological, geographical, and social environment, and as determined by their past.

14. There is no fundamental difference in the ways of thinking of primitive and civilized man. A close connection between race and personality has never been established.

15. The disease of mutual distrust among nations is the bane of modern civilization