Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

English Italiano Polski עברית Français Português فارسی Español 中文 Русский Deutsch العربية हिन्दी 日本語 Ελληνικά Latina

Peter Farb

86 quotes

“Every Messianic movement known to history has arisen in a society that has been subjected to severe stress of contact with an alien culture—involving military defeat, epidemic, and acculturation”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Almost every messianic movement in the world came into being as a result of hallucinatory visions of a prophet. One point must be emphasized about the prophet of a messianic movement: He is not a schizophrenic, as was so long assumed. A schizophrenic with religious paranoia will state that he is God, Jesus, the Great Spirit, or some other supernatural being. The prophet, on the other hand, never states that he is supernatural—only that he has been in contact with supernatural powers. (Of course, after his death, his disciples tend to deify him or at least give him saintly status.)”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Invariably the prophet emerges from his hallucinatory vision bearing a message from the supernatural that makes certain promises: the return of the bison herds, a happy hunting ground, or peace on earth and good will to men. Whatever the specific promises, the prophet offers a new power, a revitalization of the whole society.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What most impresses the people around the prophet is the personality change he has undergone. ...when stress reaches a certain intensity in the culture, only certain individuals feel called forth to become prophets while most do not. In any event, the prophet has emerged in a new cultural role, and his personality is liberated from the stress that called his response into being in the first place. Immune to the stress under which his brethren still suffer, he must appear to them supernatural.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Ghost Dance made its unfulfillable promises at a time when the Indians were ready to rebel. The teachings of the Native American Church spread at a time when the Indians were ready to admit defeat. ...The problem they had to solve was the same as any messianic movement: how to exist with an alien culture yet remain spiritually autonomous. The solution had been to borrow freely from White culture while salvaging what is considered important in Indian religious thought.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Indians have not only refused to vanish, but have... managed to salvage a part of their native culture through revitalization and messianic movements. ...they are of further interest to anthropologists for the light they shed on such movements in general.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As this cultural inadequacy becomes apparent even to the most conservative of its members, the culture may deteriorate to such an extent that it literally dies.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All routinized religions today (including the Native American Church, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity) are successful descendents of what originated as messianic movements—that is, the vision of a new way of life for a culture under extreme stress.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A central assumption of this book has been that to examine the experience of humans throughout their 25,000 years on this continent is to hold up a mirror to the culture of Modern America.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Today's American bemoans the extermination of the passenger pigeon and the threatened extinction of the whooping crane and the ivory billed woodpecker; he contributes to conservation organizations that seek to preserve the Hawaiian goose, the sea otter of the Aleutian Islands, the lizard of the Galapágos Islands... But who ever shed a tear over the loss of the native American cultures?”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Millions of dollars have been expended to excavate and transport to museums the tools, weapons, and other artifacts of Indians—but scarcely a penny has been spent to save the living descendents of those who made them. Modern man is prompt to prevent cruelty to animals, and sometimes even to humans, but no counterpart of the Humane Society or the Sierra Club exists to prevent cruelty to entire cultures.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Perhaps we, who for so long regarded ourselves as bringers of light to the shadowy recesses of North America, will finally admit that there is much about which the Indians can illuminate us.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To do nothing now is to let our children lament that they never knew the magnificent diversity of humankind because our generation let disappear those cultures that might have taught it to them.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Freedom of speech does not exist anywhere, for every community on earth forbids the use of certain sounds, words, and sentences in various speech situations. ...the habitual liar faces social sanctions ...Speakers are not allowed to misrepresent... to defame other people in public, to maliciously shout "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater, or to utter obscenities on the telephone.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thinking is language spoken to oneself. Until language has made sense of an experience, that experience is meaningless.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This inseparableness of everything in the world from language has intrigued modern thinkers, most notably Ludwig Wittgenstein... If its limits—that is, the precise point at which sense becomes nonsense—could somehow be defined, then speakers would not attempt to express the inexpressible. Therefore, said Wittgenstein, do not put too great a burden upon language. Learn its limitations and try to accommodate yourself to them, for language offers all the reality you can ever hope to know.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For tens, and perhaps hundreds, of thousands of years, people regarded language as a holy instrument that let them look out upon the world... Only in the last few decades have people suspected that their window on the world has a glass that gives a distorted view.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Each language encourages its speakers to tell certain things and to ignore other things.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Experiments... have shown that at least one aspect of human thought—memory—is strongly influenced by language.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The colors that a speaker "sees" often depend very much on the language he speaks, because each language offers its own high-codability color terms.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wilhelm von Humboldt... stated that the structure of language expresses the inner life of its speakers: "Man lives with the world about him, principally, indeed exclusively, as language presents it.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“About 1932 one of Sapir's students at Yale, Benjamin Lee Whorf drew on Sapir's ideas and began an intensive study of the language of the Hopi Indians of Arizona. Whorf's brilliant analysis... seemed to support the view that man is a prisoner of his language. Whorf emphasized grammar—rather than vocabulary, which had previously intrigued scholars—as an indicator of the way a language can direct a speaker into certain habits of thought.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The weakness of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis... the impossibility of generalizing about entire cultures and then attributing these generalizations to the language spoken ...is to leave numerous facts about culture unexplained. The great religions of the world... have flourished among diverse peoples who speak languages with sharply different grammars. ...Cultures as diverse as the Aztec Empire of Mexico and the Ute hunting bands of the Great Basin spoke very closely related tongues.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The seventeenth-century Iroquois... practiced a dream psychotherapy that was remarkably similar to Freud's discoveries two hundred years later. The Iroquois recognized the existence of an unconscious, the force of unconscious desires, the way in which the conscious mind attempts to repress unpleasant thoughts, the emergence of unpleasant thoughts in dreams, and the mental and physical (psychosomatic) illnesses that may be caused by the frustration of unconscious desires. The Iroquois knew that their dreams did not deal in facts but rather in symbols. ...And one of the techniques employed by the Iroquois seers to uncover the latent meanings behind a dream was free association...”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By the seventeenth century, observers had reached the firm conclusion that American Indians were in no way inferior to Whites, and many writers took special pains to salute the Noble Red Man. The Jesuit missionary Bressani... reported that the inhabitants "are hardly barbarous, save in name. ...marvelous faculty for remembering places, and for describing them to one another." ...can recall things that a White "could not rehearse without writing." Another Jesuit enthusiastically corroborates... "nearly all show more intelligence in their business, speeches, courtesies, intercourse, tricks and subtleties, than do the shrewdest citizens and merchants in France.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The desire of Whites to occupy Indian lands, and the constant rivalry between French and English traders for furs gathered by the Indians, led to many skirmishes and several bloody wars, all of which involved Indians on both sides. The Whites were determined to fight it out with each other—down to the last Indian. These battles culminated in the French and Indian War of 1763, which represented a disaster to many Indian groups in the northeastern part of the continent. In May, 1763, an Ottawa warrior by the name of Pontiac fell upon Detroit and captured the English forts, one after the other. Lord Jeffery Amherst... distributed among the Indians handkerchiefs and blankets from the small pox hospital at Fort Pitt—probably the first use of biological warfare in history.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Before the passage of the Removal Act of 1830, a group of Cherokee chiefs went to the Senate committee that was studying this legislation to report on what they had already achieved... They expressed the hope that they would be permitted to enjoy in peace "the blessings of civilization and Christianity on the soil of their rightful inheritance." Instead they were... denied even the basic protection of the federal government. The Removal Act was carried out almost everywhere with total lack of compassion, but in the case of the Cherokee—civilized and Christianized as they were—it was particularly brutal.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...five thousand finally consented to be marched westward, but another fifteen thousand clung to their neat farms, schools, and libraries "of good books." So General Winfield Scott set about systematically extirpating the rebellious ones. Squads of soldiers descended upon isolated Cherokee farms and at bayonet point marched the families off to what today would be known as concentration camps. Torn from their homes with all the dispatch and efficiency the Nazis displayed under similar circumstances... No way existed for the Cherokee family to sell its property and possessions, and the local Whites fell upon the lands, looting, burning, and finally taking possession.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A well-intentioned movement had gained support to give the remnant Indian populations the dignity of private property, and the plan was widely adopted in the halls of Congress, in the press, and in the meetings of religious societies. ...the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887 ... provided that after every Indian had been allotted land, any remaining surplus would be put up for sale to the public. The loopholes... made it an efficient instrument for separating the Indians from this land. ...The first lands to go were the richest—bottom lands in river valleys, or fertile grasslands. Next went the slightly less desirable lands... and so on, until all the Indian had left to him was desert that no White considered worth the trouble to take. ...Between 1887, when the Dawes Act was passed, and 1934, out of 138 million acres that had been their meager allotment, all but 56 million acres had been appropriated by Whites. ...not a single acre [of which] was judged uneroded by soil conservationists.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The victory... was complete except for one final indignity. That was to Americanize the Indian... to exterminate the cultures along with the Indians. ...Orders went out from Washington that all male Indians must cut their hair short, even though many Indians believed that long hair had supernatural significance. ...Army reinforcements were sent to the reservations to carry out the order, and in some cases Indians had to be shackled before they submitted. ...attention of the Americanizers was concentrated on the Indian children, who were snatched from their families and shipped to boarding schools far from their homes... usually ... for eight years, during which time they were not permitted to see their parents, relatives, or friends. Anything Indian—dress, language, religious practices, even outlook on life... was uncompromisingly prohibited. ...They had suffered psychological death at an early age.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After the Spaniards settled the Southwest, the Navajo began another burst of cultural borrowing—or, more actually, stealing. Spanish ranches and villages were so depleted of horses—not to mention sheep—that by 1775 the Spaniards had to send to Europe for 1,500 additional horses. After the Pueblo Rebellion against the Spaniards was put down in 1692, many Pueblo took refuge with their Navajo neighbors—and taught them how to weave blankets, a skill for which the Navajo are still noted, and to make pottery. During this time the Navajo probably absorbed many Pueblo religious and social ideas and customs as well, such as ceremonial paraphernalia and possibly the Pueblo class system.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In 1863, Colonel Kit Carson was ordered to clear the country of Navajo Indians and to resettle any survivors at Fort Sumner in eastern New Mexico, where they could be "civilized." Carson's strategy was the same as that applied against the Plains Indians a little later: He destroyed the Navajo food base by systematically killing their livestock and by burning their fields. Carson's "Long Knives" (his soldiers so named because of their bayonets) also cut off the breast of Navajo girls and tossed them back and forth like baseballs. ...Ultimately, about 8,500 Navajos made what they still call the "Long Walk" to captivity at Fort Sumner, three hundred miles away. After they had been there for four years, the Navajo signed a peace treaty that entitled them to a reservation of about 3,500,000 acres, much less than they had held previously.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A culture that is in the process of being swamped by another often reacts by physically grappling with the outsiders. But it may wage a cultural war as well. Such defensive actions have been given various labels by anthropologists: nativism, revivalism, revitalization, and messianism. All are deliberate efforts to erect a better culture out of the defeat or decay of an older one. ...The reactions of primitive peoples overpowered by Eurasian colonial empires have usually been much more extreme. Their lands appropriated, their social system ripped apart, their customs suppressed, and their holy places profaned—they tried to resist physically but they were inevitably defeated by the superior firepower and technology of the Whites. As hopelessness and apathy settled over these people, the ground was prepared for revivalistic and messianic movements that promised the return of the good old days.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are strong parallels between the hope for salvation of the Jews and the hopes of the Indians who followed native prophets, between the early Christian martyrs and the Indian revolts against United States authority, between the Hebrew and the [native American] Indian prophets. ...the Jews and early Christians have served as models for oppressed peoples from primitive cultures... Almost everywhere the White missionary has penetrated, primitive people have borrowed from his bible those elements in which they saw a portrayal of their own plight...They regard the arrest and execution of a native on charges of being a rebel against White authority in the same terms as the trials undergone by the Hebrew prophets or the passion of Jesus.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A Delaware Indian prophet appeared [1762] in Michigan and preached a doctrine that he said had been revealed to him in a vision. He called for the cessation of strife by Indian against Indian, and a holy war against the Whites... finally a practical man, an Algonkian named Pontiac, arose to lead them. He formed a confederation and attacked English forts all along the Great Lakes until he was ambushed and his forces utterly defeated. ...Forty years later the Shawnee Prophet ... twin brother of Chief Tecumseh, repeated the promises of the Delaware Prophet... Tecumseh established the greatest Indian alliance that ever existed north of Mexico. He and his emissaries visited almost every band, tribe, and chiefdom from the headwaters of the Missouri River in the Rocky Mountains to as far south and east as Florida. Indians everywhere were arming themselves for the right moment to attack the Whites when, in 1811, Tecumseh's brother, the Shawnee Prophet, launched a premature attack at Tippecanoe... the Indians were defeated by General William Henry Harrison... Tecumseh rallied his remaining forces and joined the British in the War of 1812. He fought bravely in battle after battle, but in 1813 his 2,500 warriors from the allied tribes were defeated decisively, once again by General Harrison.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whorf asked... Do the Hopi and European cultures... conceptualize reality in different ways? And his answer was that they do. Whereas European cultures are organized in terms of space and time, the Hopi culture, Whorf believed, emphasizes events. To speakers of European languages, time is a commodity that occurs between fixed points and can be measured. Time is said to be wasted or saved... their economic systems emphasize wages paid for the amount of time worked, rent for the time a dwelling is occupied, interest for the time money is loaned. Hopi culture... instead thinks... The span of time the growing takes is not the important thing, but rather the way in which the event of growth follows the event of planting. The Hopi is concerned that the sequence of events in the construction of a building be in the correct order, not that it takes a certain amount of time to complete the job.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source