Quotes by Claude Levi-Strauss

“I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact.”

“I think that a society cannot live without a certain number of irrational beliefs. They are protected from criticism and analysis because they are irrational.”

“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 contradic...”

“For everything is history: What was said yesterday is history, what was said a minute ago is history. But, above all, one is led to misjudge the present, because only the study of historical develo...”

“The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he's one who asks the right questions.”

“For mile after mile the same melodic phrase rose up in my memory. I simply couldn’t get free of it. Each time it had a new fascination for me. Initially imprecise in outline, it seemed to become mo...”

“From time to time, too, and for the space of two or three paces, an image or an echo would rise up from the recesses of time: in the little streets of the beaters of silver and gold, for instance, ...”

“The more we claim to discriminate between cultures and customs as good and bad, the more completely do we identify ourselves with those we would condemn. By refusing to consider as human those who ...”

“Not all poisonous juices are burning or bitter nor is everything which is burning and bitter poisonous.”

“Every effort to understand destroys the object studied in favor of another object of a different nature; this second object requires from us a new effort which destroys it in favor of a third, and ...”

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

“The scientific mind does not so much provide the right answers as ask the right questions.”

“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 contradicto...”