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The Eskimos live among ice all their lives but have no single word for ice.

— Ashley Montagu

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Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: Man: His first Million Years, (1957); this quote begins the penultimate chapter of Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan
Source quality: Source identified Names the work or year, but without an exact location.

More by Ashley Montagu

The world is so full of wonderful things we should all, if we were taught how to appreciate it, be far richer than kings.

Among both the Northern and Eastern Hamites are to be found some of the most beautiful types of humanity.

[C]ircumcision, an archaic ritual mutilation that has no justification whatever and no place in a civilized society.

Mutilated Humanity (1991)

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More quotes by Ashley Montagu

The scientist believes in proof without certainty, the bigot in certainty without proof.

The omelet called “race” has no existence outside the statistical frying- pan in which it has been reduced by the heat of the anthropological imagination.

The ability to play is one of the principal criteria of mental health.

The family unit is the institution for the systematic production of mental illness.

And we begin to understand that the goal of life is to die young — as late as possible!

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Attribution

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