Franz Boas Quotes

The behavior of an individual is determined not by his racial affiliation, but by the character of his ancestry and his cultural environment.

The existence of any pure race with special endowments is a myth, as is the belief that there are races all of whose members are foredoomed to eternal inferiority.

The disease of mutual distrust among nations is the bane of modern civilization

The passion for seeking the truth for truth's sake...can be kept alive only if we continue to seek the truth for truth's sake.

No one has ever proved that a human being, through his descent from a certain group of people, must of necessity have certain mental characteristics.

The historical development of the work of anthropologists seems to single out clearly a domain of knowledge that heretofore has not been treated by any other science.

I hope I may have succeeded in presenting to you, however imperfectly, the currents of thought due to the work of the immortal Darwin which have helped to make anthropology what it is at the present time.