The "dry bones" of history, its statistical averages, and so on, are all very well in their way; but they correspond to the superficial truth that history repeats itself, rather than to the deeper truth that history is an evolution.

Anthropology, then, should not disdain what might be termed the method of the historical novel.

To study the plot without studying the characters will never make sense of the drama of human life.
It may seem a truism, but is perhaps worth recollecting at the start, that no man or woman lacks individuality altogether, even if it cannot be regarded in a particular case as a high individuality.

No one is a mere item.

That useful figment of the statistician has no real existence under the sun.