Marshall Sahlins Quotes & Sayings

One-third to one-half of humanity are said to go to bed hungry every night. In the Old Stone Age the fraction must have been much smaller. This is the era of hunger unprecedented. Now, in the time of the greatest technical power, is starvation an institution. Reverse another venerable formula: the amount of hunger increases relatively and absolutely with the evolution of culture. — Marshall Sahlins

We are inclined to think of hunters and gatherers as poor because they don't have anything; perhaps better to think of them for that reason as free. — Marshall Sahlins

We can reproduce within our own minds the way that the world is put together for other people. This is the extraordinary privilege and adventure of anthropology. — Marshall Sahlins

The world's most primitive people have few possessions, but they are not poor. Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the invention of civilization. — Marshall Sahlins

Gifts make friends and friends make gifts. — Marshall Sahlins