“As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.”

“Generally the theories we believe we call facts,and the facts we disbelieve we call theories.”

“There is no way to understand the character of the taboo rules, except as a survival from some previous more elaborate cultural background. We know also and as a consequence that any theory which makes the taboo rules ... intelligible just as they are without any reference to their history is necessarily a false theory... why should we think about [the theories of] analytic moral philosophers such as Moore, Ross, Prichard, Stevenson, Hare and the rest in any different way? ... Why should we think about our modern use of good, right and obligatory in any different way from that in which we think about late eighteenth-century Polynesian uses of taboo?”

“The perfect society to which we aspire in theory may become a powerful enemy of the good society we can become in fact.”

“And we don't have to use all the psychological baggage we inherit. We can empty our suitcases and repack them with new rules and possibilities.”

“We both believe, and disbelieve a hundred times an hour, which keeps believing nimble.”