Top Clifford Geertz Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Clifford Geertz Biography

Clifford Geertz

Clifford James Geertz (/ɡɜːrts/ ( listen); August 23, 1926 – October 30, 2006) was an American anthropologist who is remembered mostly for his strong support for and influence on the practice of symbolic anthropology, and who was considered "for three decades...the single most influential cultural anthropologist in the United States." He served until his death as professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.

Read about Clifford Geertz in Wikipedia

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Clifford Geertz Quotes

A scholar can hardly be better employed than in destroying a fear.

Destroying, Employed, Fear, Scholar

To see ourselves as others see us can be eye-opening. To see others as sharing a nature with ourselves is the merest decency. But it is from the far more difficult achievement of seeing ourselves amongst others, as a local example of the forms human life has locally taken, a case among cases, a world among worlds, that the largeness of mind, without which objectivity is self-congratulation and tolerance a sham, comes.

Congratulations, Forms, Life, Nature, Sham

I've often been accused of making anthropology into literature, but anthropology is also field research. Writing is central to it.

Accused, Anthropology, Central, Literature, Research, Writing

I think of myself as a writer who happens to be doing his writing as an anthropologist

Anthropologist, Happens, Think, Thinking, Writing

A religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing those conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.

Establish, Formulating, Men, Motivation, Powerful

People keep asking how anthropology is different from sociology, and everybody gets nervous.

People, Different, Asking, Nervous, Sociology

I do think the attempt to raise consciousness has succeeded. People are very aware of gender concerns now

Aware, Concerns, Consciousness, People, Succeeded, Thinking

I don't think things are moving toward an omega point; I think they're moving toward more diversity

Diversity, Moving, Point, Things, Think, Thinking

Learning to exist in a world quite different from that which formed you is the condition, these days, of pursuing research you can on balance believe in and write sentences you can more or less live with.

Balance, Believe, Live, Sentences, World, Writing

I think the American university system still seems to be the best system in the world

American, American Universities, Thinking, University, World

It's always amusing to look at how something early in the 20th century was written in anthropology and how it's written now. There's been an enormous shift in how it's done, but yet you can't put your finger on someone who actually did it

Looks, Done, Amusing, Enormous, Actually

Has feminism made us all more conscious? I think it has. Feminist critiques of anthropological masculine bias have been quite important, and they have increased my sensitivity to that kind of issue

Feminist, Increased, Issues, Kind, Masculine, Thinking

I agree with Chomsky in almost nothing. When it comes to innate structures and so on, I'm very skeptical

Agree, Chomsky, Nothing, Skeptical, Structure

I don't have the notion that everybody has to write in some single academic style

Academic, Everybody, Notion, Style, Write, Writing

I never leave a sentence or a paragraph until I'm satisfied with it

Paragraph, Satisfied, Sentences, Sentence, Leave

Younger anthropologists have the notion that anthropology is too diverse. The number of things done under the name of anthropology is just infinite; you can do anything and call it anthropology

Anthropologists, Done, Names, Notion, Numbers

Meaning is socially, historically, and rhetorically constructed.

Constructed, Historically, Meaning, Rhetorically, Socially

The way in which mathematicians and physicists and historians talk is quite different, and what a physicist means by physical intuition and what a mathematician means by beauty or elegance are things worth thinking about.

Mean, Thinking, Intuition, Mathematicians, Worth, Physical

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

Animal, Men, Significance, Spun, Suspended

Anthropology never has had a distinct subject matter, and because it doesn't have a real method, there's a great deal of anxiety over what it is

Real, Anxiety, Matter, Method, Deal

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