Mary Douglas Quotes & Sayings

“If you want to change the culture, you will have to start by changing the organization.”

“Yes, disappointment over perceived unfairness, injustice, promises not kept, tends to go hand in hand with increasing prosperity. Expectations are dashed. What can I say!”

“Religion can make it worse. Are you supposing that if people were encouraged to believe in a transcendent reality, and to be encouraged by grand rituals and music and preaching, to love their neighbors, then they would put jealousy and frustration aside?”

“If people want to compete for leadership of a religious group, they can compete in piety. A chilling thought. Or funny.”

“Pretensions to moral superiority are devastatingly destructive.”

“Hierarchy is is much reviled in the present day.”

“I am convinced that living in an enclave shapes the personality, and living alone shapes the personality too.”

“Inequality can have a bad downside, but equality, for its part, sure does get in the way of coordination.”

“What did our nation ever do to provoke these madly vicious enemies? What is seen as injustice in one place is seen as just requital in the other.”

“Without that assured American largesse Israel would have been obliged to come to an accommodation with her neighbours.”