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To say that the invention "was in the air" or "the times were ripe for it" are just other ways of stating that the inventors did not do the inventing, but that the cultures did.

— Peter Farb Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)

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More quotes by Peter Farb

Freedom of speech does not exist anywhere, for every community on earth forbids the use of certain sounds, words, and sentences in various speech situations.

Word Play (1974)

Culture is all the things and ideas ever devised by humans working and living together.

Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)

What most impresses the people around the prophet is the personality change he has undergone.

Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)

An unusual manifestation of it is when the whole dominant culture takes up the ways of the conquered.

Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)

For a tribe to endure, it must find some way to achieve internal unity—and that way usually is external strife.

Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)

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Attribution

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