Clifford Geertz

"Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun."

"Meaning is not intrinsic in things; it is constructed through social interaction."

"Culture is not a power, something to which social events, behaviors, institutions, or processes can be causally attributed; it is a context."

"To see ourselves as others see us requires a kind of anthropological distance from our own assumptions."

"The profound problem is that ordinary men do not take intellectual life very seriously."

"Understanding a culture requires entering into its symbolic universe."

"Human thought is consummately social: social in its origins, social in its functions, social in its forms, social in its applications."

"Thick description is the hallmark of genuine anthropological understanding."

"Religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations."

"The ethnographer does not, and in the very nature of the case cannot, perceive what his informants perceive."

"Art forms generate meanings, they do not merely express them."

"Common sense is not what the mind comes naturally to but what it has learned to accept naturally."

"One does not join the intellectual community by taking a test but by acquiring the ability to talk its language."

"Politics is not simply a matter of power but of meaning-making."

"Symbols shape how we interpret reality; change the symbols and you change the world."

"The concept of culture is essentially a semiotic one—we are meaning-making creatures."

"Historical understanding is always interpretive, never merely factual."

"To understand behavior, you must understand the system of meanings within which it occurs."

"Institutions do not merely constrain behavior; they create the very possibilities for meaningful action."

"The analysis of culture begins with the recognition that human beings are intrinsically interpretive animals."

"Belief systems are not psychological phenomena but social ones."

"Language is the medium through which culture is transmitted and sustained."

"Ideology arises from the attempt to make sense of rapid social change."

"The question is not what universal principles operate but what particular circumstances individuals confront."

"Art speaks to something in human nature that transcends the merely pragmatic."

"Social structures are made visible through cultural performances."

"To study literature is not to study individual works but interpretive traditions."

"The mind of man is the basic capital which the underdeveloped countries possess."

"Rationality is not something that exists independent of cultural context."

"Anthropology is ultimately about understanding human difference and dignity."