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Culture Quotes

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Culture Quotes

“I believe that art is the highest expression of the human spirit. I believe that we yearn to transcend the merely finite and ephemeral; to participate in something mysterious and communal called 'culture' - and that this yearning is as strong in our species as the yearning to reproduce the species.”

BelieveHumansArtSpiritCultureStrongI BelieveExpressionHighestArt IsSpeciesMysteriousYearningFiniteHuman SpiritEphemeral
Book:The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art
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“We will never know the extent of the damage movies are doing to us, but movie art, it appears, thrives on moral chaos. When the country is paralyzed, the popular culture may tell us why. After innocence, winners become losers. Movies are probably inuring us to corruption; the sellout is the hero-survivor for our times.”

KnowsMayArtCountryCultureMoralHeroChaosCorruptionInnocenceWinnerOur TimeDamageThriveSurvivorLoserPopular CultureParalyzed
Book:For Keeps
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“The argument culture urges us to approach the world - and the people in it - in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: The best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate; the best way to cover news is to find spokespeople who express the most extreme, polarized views and present them as 'both sides'; the best way to settle disputes is litigation that pits one party against the other; the best way to begin an essay is to attack someone; and the best way to show you're really thinking is to criticize.”

PeopleThinkingWorldWayMindIdeasDoneShowsCultureSidesViewsPartyApproachNewsArgumentExtremesDebateBest WaySettlingAssumptionOppositionUrgesCriticizeBoth SidesEssaysDisputesPitsFrame Of MindSpokespeople
Author:Deborah Tannen
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“To write about the monstrous sense of alienation the poet feels in this culture of polarized hatreds is a way of staying sane. With the poem, I reach out to an audience equally at odds with official policy, and I celebrate our mutual humanness in an inhuman world.”

WorldWayFeelsWritingCultureAudiencePolicyPoetHatredCelebrateOfficialsStayingMutualReach OutSaneOddsAlienationMonstrousInhumanHumanness
Book:Always Beginning: Essays on a Life in Poetry
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“the last decade has seen a powerful counterassault on women's rights, a backlash, an attempt to retract the handful of small and hard-won victories that the feminist movement did manage to win for women. This counterassault is largely insidious: in a kind of pop-culture version of the Big Lie, it stands the truth boldly on its head and proclaims that the very steps that have elevated women's position have actually led to their downfall.”

KindHardBigsLastsLyingCultureWinningPowerfulStepsRightsFeminismMovementPositionVictoryFeministPopsDecadesVersionsManageWomens RightsHandfulPop CultureDownfallInsidiousBacklashFeminist Movement
Book:Backlash: the undeclared war against American women
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“When a man loses superiority, he loses potency. That's what all this talk about castrating women is about. Castrating women are those who refuse to pretend men are better than they are and better than women are. The simple truth - that men are only equal - can undermine a culture more devastatingly than any bomb. Subversion is telling the truth.”

MenCultureLosesSimpleEqualRefuseBombsTelling The TruthSuperioritySimple TruthsPotencySubversion
Book:The Women's Room
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“The creative process ignites our imagination, and I believe that that same imagination is what will propel us forward with issues of social change. I do think we have to acknowledge that we are a very capitalistic and consumptive nation, and that talk about conservation or issues of sustainability is never going to be popular with the dominant culture because it means checks and balances on an economy that is reserved for the dollar, rather than an economy that honors and respects spiritual resources and the right of all life to participate on the planet, not just our species.”

ThinkingBelieveMeanSpiritualCultureI BelieveNationsSocialProcessImaginationEconomyCreativeIssuesEnvironmentPlanetsBalanceHonorResourcesDollarsSpeciesChecksAcknowledgeSustainabilityCreative ProcessDominantConservationSocial ChangeReservedIgniteDominant CultureHonor And Respect
Author:Terry Tempest Williams
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“We do not need to minimize the poverty of the ghetto or the suffering inflicted by whites on blacks in order to see that the increasingly dangerous and unpredictable conditions of middle-class life have given rise to similar strategies for survival. Indeed the attraction of black culture for disaffected whites suggests that black culture now speaks to a general condition.”

NeedsSufferingOrderCultureSpeakGivenBlackClassPovertyMiddleConditionsDangerousSurvivalStrategyAttractionMiddle ClassUnpredictableGhettoBlack CultureMiddle Class Life
Book:The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations
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“if I love something I do it, and if I don't, I don't. I think that this is the most important choice that any of us can make in life, in art, in history: to do the thing you love. If you love it, it is important. If you love it then while you are doing it, you are a true expression of yourself and your time and your story. You are authentic. If you don't love it you betray not only yourself but also your history, your culture, your position in your society.”

IfsThinkingArtImportantStoriesChoicesCulturePassionPositionExpressionBetrayThings You LoveImportant Choices
Author:Lina Wertmuller
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“Men's bodies are our women's works of art. Given to us power of control, we will never carelessly throw them in to fill up the gaps in human relationships made by international ambitions and greeds ... War will pass when intellectual culture and activity have made possible to the female an equal share in the governance of modern national life; it will probably not pass away much sooner; its extinction will not be delayed much longer.”

MenHumansArtMadeWarBodyCultureGivenShareModernActivityEqualAmbitionIntellectualFemaleGreedInternationalWorks Of ArtGapsExtinctionGovernancePassing AwayHuman RelationsHuman RelationshipsDelayed
Author:Olive Schreiner
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“The position of children as a group, in a commercial society, is not wholly advantageous. A commercial society urges its citizens to be responsible for things, but not for people. It is the unquestioned assumption of a mercantile culture that things need and deserve attention, but that people can take care of themselves.”

PeopleNeedsChildrenCareCultureBusinessAttentionGroupsPositionCitizensDeserveResponsibleTake CareAssumptionUrgesBeing Responsible
Book:The Folks at Home
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“As one might expect in a society with mass communications and mass markets, the pseudo-ethic says that whatever is popular, is right. Where the traditional ethic derives its sanction from the superiority of a few, the pseudo-ethic derives its sanction from the inferiority of a great many. The pseudo-ethic is keyed, not to the spiritually gifted, but to the spiritually ungifted.”

MightCultureCommunicationMassEthicsTraditionalGreat MenGiftedSuperioritySanctionsInferiorityPopular CulturePseudoMass Communication
Book:The Corrupted Giant: A Speculation on American Politics and Morals
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“There are ... other business societies - England, Holland, Belgium and France, for instance. But ours [the United States] is the only culture now extant in which business so completely dominates the national scene that sports, crime, sex, death, philanthropy and Easter Sunday are money-making propositions.”

StatesCultureSexSportsUnitedUnited StatesCrimeSceneEnglandInstanceFranceMaking MoneySundayPhilanthropyEasterPropositionsBelgiumHollandEaster Sunday
Book:The Folks at Home
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“I believe deeply in a common humanity. The black man belongs to the family of man. One part of that family is out of control - like a virus or cancer - and that is the white man. He and his technological society are bent on destroying the world. Everywhere the white man has gone with his empire, he has destroyed people, races, societies, cultures, and in the course of it, has sterilized himself. He is completely the mechanical man: without heart, without soul. He is the Tin Man of The Wizard of Oz. But I don't believe that all the white people in the world are no good.”

PeopleMenWorldBelieveHeartSoulHumanityCultureCoursesI BelieveBlackWhiteCommonRaceGoneDon't BelieveCancerDestroyedEmpiresDestroyingTechnologicalBentWhite ManWizardsVirusesTinCommon HumanityTin Man
Book:Conversations with Margaret Walker
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“Therefore, when I look for a church, I look for the music that best fits me and the programs that best cater to me and my family. When I make plans for my life and career, it is about what works best for me and my family. When I consider the house I will live in, the car I will drive, the clothes I will wear, the way I will live, I will choose according to what is best for me. This is the version of Christianity that largely prevails in our culture. But it is not biblical Christianity.”

WayLooksCultureHouseChurchChristianityCareersPlansCarFitClothesProgramMy FamilyVersionsBiblical
Author:David Platt
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“Truth, acceptance of the truth, is a shattering experience. It shatters the binding shroud of culture trance. It rips apart smugness, arrogance, superiority, and self-importance. It requires acknowledgment of responsibility for the nature and quality of each of our own lives, our own inner lives as well as the life of the world. Truth, inwardly accepted, humbling truth, makes one vulnerable. You can't be right, self-righteous, and truthful at the same time.”

WorldWellsSelfTruthCultureQualityResponsibilityAcceptanceTruth IsImportanceAcceptedVulnerableArroganceRighteousTruthfulSuperiorityRipInner LifeBindingHumblingSelf RighteousTranceAcknowledgmentSelf-importanceShatteringShroudsSmugness
Book:Off the Reservation: Reflections on Boundary-busting Border-crossing Loose Canons
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