Claude Lévi-Strauss

"In the case of European towns, the passing of centuries provides an enhancement; in the case of American towns, the passing of years brings degeneration. It is not simply that they have been newly bui…"

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

"The entire village left the next day in about thirty canoes, leaving us alone with the women and children in the abandoned houses."

"While I complain of being able to glimpse no more than the shadow of the past, I may be insensitive to reality as it is taking shape at this very moment, since I have not reached the stage of developm…"

"I never had, and still do not have, the perception of feeling my personal identity. I appear to myself as the place where something is going on, but there is no ‘I’, no ‘me.’ Each of us is a kind of c…"

"If we judge the achievements of other social groups in relation to the kind of objectives we set ourselves, we have at times to acknowledge their superiority; but in doing so we acquire the right to j…"

"NYTimes commemoration at age 100"

"People who are without writing have a fantastically precise knowledge of their environment and all their resources. All these things we have lost, but we did not lose them for nothing; we are now able…"