Mary Douglas

"The sacred emerges from social consensus."

"Anomalies must be addressed or explained away."

"Our deepest beliefs are encoded in our everyday practices."

"Culture is a system of meanings and values."

"What we exclude reveals what we value."

"Order is imposed, not natural."

"The human body is a microcosm of society."

"Purity rules protect the boundaries of community."

"We live in worlds of meaning, not nature."

"Danger is socially defined."

"Rituals transform individuals into members of society."

"What we fear most is the loss of our categories."

"Food rules are really rules about order and identity."

"Every culture creates its own sense of the sacred."

"Pollution beliefs protect social values."

"The unclassifiable is the dangerous."

"Society requires constant maintenance of its boundaries."

"What seems primitive to us serves important functions."

"Anthropology reveals the logic behind apparent superstition."

"Institutions depend on symbolic systems to function."

"We construct reality through our classifications."

"Order must be constantly reinforced through ritual."

"The basis of all law is boundary maintenance."

"What is marginal is dangerous."

"Society speaks to itself through its rules about the body."

"We are bound together by shared taboos."

"Understanding a culture means understanding its categories."

"The natural world only makes sense through cultural lenses."

"Anomalies are addressed through ritual or redefinition."

"Every group needs to distinguish itself from others."