I am convinced that living in an enclave shapes the personality, and living alone shapes the personality too. – Mary Douglas
Real equality is immensely difficult to achieve, it needs continual revision and monitoring of distributions. And it does not provide buffers between members, so they are continually colliding or frustrating each other. – Mary Douglas
It seems true that the growth of science and secularism made organized Christianity feel under threat. – Mary Douglas
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? – Mary Douglas
Our destiny often looks like a fruit-tree in winter. Who would think from its pitiable aspect that those rigid boughs, those rough twigs could next spring again be green, bloom, and even bear fruit? Yet we hope it, we know it. – Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Travels, translated from German