Marvin Harris Quotes

• I don't see how you can write anything of value if you don't offend someone.

  Marvin Harris

  Writing, Offensive, Controversial

  63 Copy quote

• Ethnography literally means 'a portrait of a people.' An ethnography is a written description of a particular culture - the customs, beliefs, and behavior - based on information collected through fieldwork.

  Marvin Harris

  Mean, People, Portraits

  58 Copy quote

• In many ways the rise of the state was the descent of the world from freedom to slavery

  Marvin Harris

  World, Slavery, Way

  Marvin Harris (2011). “Cannibals and Kings: Origins of Cultures”, p.102, Vintage

  16 Copy quote

• But with the Industrial Revolution and introduction of various industrial techniques for purifying sugar, we have a situation in which what we are consuming is not good nutritionally or ecologically.

  Marvin Harris

  Technique, Sugar, Revolution

  23 Copy quote

• Hindus and Westerners alike see in the meat-eating taboos of India a triumph of morals over appetite. This is a dangerous misrepresentation of cultural processes. Hindu vegetarianism was a victory not of spirit over matter but of reproductive over productive forces.

  Marvin Harris

  Vegetarianism, Meat Eating, Victory

  Marvin Harris (2011). “Cannibals and Kings: Origins of Cultures”, p.229, Vintage

  15 Copy quote

• Now we are in a situation in which for a significant part of the industrial world too much could become a danger, especially too much of the things which are really not good for us in such large quantities.

  Marvin Harris

  World, Too Much, Danger

  12 Copy quote

• Every theory presented as a scientific concept is just that; it's a theory that tries to explain more about the world than previous theories have done. It is open to being challenged and to being proven incorrect.

  Marvin Harris

  Trying, Done, World

  10 Copy quote

• There are very important and practical issues raised by following this alternative route which says, lets look to material conditions, to the systems of production, to the needs that human beings have, and to competing alternative solutions to the satisfaction of those needs.

  Marvin Harris

  Issues, Important, Needs

  9 Copy quote

• The commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' does not say it's O.K. to kill some people and not others.

  Marvin Harris

  People, Doe, Commandments

  4 Copy quote

• Yes, a general principle that comes out of research behind Good to Eat is that there are no world religions that have acted to decrease the potential for the nutritional well-being of their followers.

  Marvin Harris

  World Religions, Principles, Followers

  8 Copy quote

• Like all dominant groups, men seek to promote an image of their subordinate's nature that contributes to the preservation of the status quo. For thousands of years, males have seen women not as women could be, but only as males want them to be.

  Marvin Harris

  Men, Years, Males

  5 Copy quote

• Food, like sex, is one of the principal kinds of human activity that engage people when they wonder about how to account for different kinds of human behaviour.

  Marvin Harris

  Sex, People, Different

  7 Copy quote

• I don't know of any cases where as a result of religious precepts a population have found themselves enjoying less food than they would have if they didn't follow this particular religion.

  Marvin Harris

  Religious, Population, Results

  5 Copy quote

• Like most North Americans, I'd been raised on the notion that milk is the first food, and everybody must like it because it's so good and so important for growing up and for being healthy.

  Marvin Harris

  Growing Up, Healthy, Important

  7 Copy quote

• Here you do have forests, where pigs could be raised by letting them root about in the forests for a good part of the year. Therefore, you have a different attitude toward them compared with what continues to exist in the Middle East.

  Marvin Harris

  Attitude, Pigs, Years

  8 Copy quote

• Pigs prefer to wallow in clean mud, but if nothing else is available, they will frequently wallow in their own urine, giving rise to the notion that they are dirty animals.

  Marvin Harris

  Dirty, Animal, Pigs

  8 Copy quote

• When a woman gives birth to a child, the child needs to be able to digest the mother's milk; but when this child is old enough to begin to eat other foods, there is some switching off of this ability to consume milk.

  Marvin Harris

  Mother, Children, Giving

  52 Copy quote

• Pigs eat grass if they are very hungry, but they can't use it as a regular source of food.

  Marvin Harris

  Pigs, Use, Hungry

  7 Copy quote

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