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Growing up human is uniquely a matter of social relations rather than biology. What we learn from connections within the family takes the place of instincts that program the behavior of animals; which raises the question, how good are these connections?

— Elizabeth Janeway Incest: A Rational Look at the Oldest Taboo (1981)

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More quotes by Elizabeth Janeway

The Goddamn human race deserves itself, and as far as I'm concerned it can have it.

Accident (1964)

If there's nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come, there is nothing more ubiquitously pervasive than an idea whose time won't go.

Like their personal lives, women's history is fragmented, interrupted; a shadow history of human beings whose existence has been shaped by the efforts and the demands of others.

Between Myth and Morning: Women Awakening (1974)

Sex cannot be contained within a definition of physical pleasure, it cannot be understood as merely itself for it has stood for too long as a symbol of profound connection between human beings.

Between Myth and Morning: Women Awakening (1974)

Philosophically, incest asks a fundamental question of our shifting mores: not simply what is normal and what is deviant, but whether such a thing as deviance exists at all in human relationships if they seem satisfactory to those who share them.

Incest: A Rational Look at the Oldest Taboo (1981)

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Attribution

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