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The first thing we see as we travel round the world is our own filth, thrown into the face of mankind.

— Claude Lévi-Strauss Tristes Tropiques (1955)

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More quotes by Claude Lévi-Strauss

One must be very naïve or dishonest to imagine that men choose their beliefs independently of their situation.

Tristes Tropiques (1955)

Natural man did not precede society, nor is he outside it.

Tristes Tropiques (1955)

These facts make the creator of music a being like the gods, and make music itself the supreme mystery of human knowledge.

Mythologiques I: Le cru et le cuit (1964)

Teaching and research are not to be confused with training for a profession. Their greatness and their misfortune is that they are a refuge or a mission.

Tristes Tropiques (1955)

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

The Raw and the Cooked : Introduction to a Science of Mythology (1975)

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In imitating the exemplary acts of a god or of a mythic hero, or simply by recounting their adventures, the man of an archaic society detaches himself from profane time and magically re-enters the Great Time, the sacred time.

Mircea Eliade Myths, Dreams and Mysteries (1967)

In your journey, be prepared to encounter an array of obstacles – some steep, some flat – for that's the nature of the path.

Sanu Sharma

Travellers like poets are mostly an angry race.

Richard Francis Burton

All journeys end in disappointment if for no other reason than that they end.

Lucius Shepard

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Claude Lévi-Strauss (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.