Claude Levi-Strauss Quotes
Claude Levi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and philosopher and the founder of structural anthropology. Influenced by Roman Jakobson's structural linguistics and his own field experience among the indigenous peoples of Brazil, he developed a method that sought to identify the unconscious logical structures underlying kinship systems, totemism, and myth. The quotes below are attributed to Claude Levi-Strauss, organized by topic.
Claude Levi-Strauss on Knowledge
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Attributed to Claude Levi-Strauss:
“The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers; he is one who asks the right questions.”
Claude Levi-Strauss on Mind
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Attributed to Claude Levi-Strauss:
“I am the place in which something has occurred.”
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Attributed to Claude Levi-Strauss:
“Myths get thought in man unbeknownst to him.”
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Attributed to Claude Levi-Strauss:
“The savage mind totalizes; it thinks the whole through the parts.”
Claude Levi-Strauss on Nature
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Attributed to Claude Levi-Strauss:
“The world began without man, and it will end without him.”