Top 36 Quotes by Clifford Geertz

People keep asking how anthropology is different from sociology, and everybody gets nervous.

Gender consciousness has become involved in almost every intellectual field: history, literature, science, anthropology. There's been an extraordinary advance.

I've written a lot of books which are written from the moon - the view from nowhere.

I don't feel that an atmosphere of debate and total disagreement and argument is such a bad thing. It makes for a vital and alive field.

I was trained in the '50s as a New Critic. I remember what literature was like before the New Critics, when people stood up and talked about Shelley's soul and such things.

I had a hard time convincing students that they were going to North Africa to understand the North Africans, not to understand themselves.

I don't think things are moving toward an omega point; I think they're moving toward more diversity.

If I remember correctly, a writer is someone who wants to convey information. Language or writing is a code.

Most anthropologists are doing straightforward ethnography, and should.

We're getting closer to our nature.