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Culture Quotes

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Culture Quotes

“Culture, far from giving us freedom, only develops, as it advances, new necessities; the fetters of the physical close more tightly around us, so that the fear of loss quenches even the ardent impulse toward improvement, and the maxims of passive obedience are held to be the highest wisdom of life.”

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Book:Aesthetical Essays of Schiller: Top Classic of German
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“The absence of utopianism in the Constitution, law, and traditional political culture has been ... important in limiting expectations concerning what can be achieved by politics. The history of the last two centuries confirms what the framers of the Constitution understood: that the perfect is the enemy of the good, and the search for unalloyed virtue in public life leads to unalloyed terror.”

Has BeensTwoImportantLastsLawPoliticalCulturePerfectEnemyVirtueCenturyExpectationsUnderstoodConstitutionTerrorAbsenceTraditionalPublic LifeFramersPolitical Culture
Author:Jeane Kirkpatrick
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“Even personal tastes are learned, in the matrix of a culture or a subculture in which we grow up, by very much the same kind of process by which we learn our common values. Purely personal tastes, indeed, can only survive in a culture which tolerates them, that is, which has a common value that private tastes of certain kinds should be allowed.”

ShouldKindCertainValuesCultureGrowsProcessCommonGrowing UpTasteTolerateSubculturePersonal Taste
Author:Kenneth E. Boulding
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“Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonest; the spirit and the senses so easily grow dead to the impressions of the beautiful and perfect, that every one should study, by all methods, to nourish in his mind the faculty of feeling these things. ...For this reason, one ought every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”

IfsMenShouldMindLittlesReasonFeelingsBeautifulSpiritSongCultureSpeakGrowsPerfectStudyFineOughtMethodSensesImpressionReasonableFaculty
Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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“However diligent she may be, however dedicated, no mother can escape the larger influences of culture, biology, fate . . . until we can actually live in a society where mothers and children genuinely matter, ours is an essentially powerless responsibility. Mothers carry out most of the work orders, but most of the rules governing our lives are shaped by outside influences.”

MayChildrenMatterMotherOrderCultureResponsibilityOur LivesFateInfluenceBiologyDedicatedPowerlessGoverningDiligentMother And ChildOutside Influences
Author:Mary Blakely
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“A "snapshot" feature in USA Today listed the five greatest concerns parents and teachers had about children in the '50s: talking out of turn, chewing gum in class, doing homework, stepping out of line, cleaning their rooms. Then it listed the five top concerns of parents today: drug addiction, teenage pregnancy, suicide and homicide, gang violence, anorexia and bulimia. We can also add AIDS, poverty, and homelessness. . . . Between my own childhood and the advent of my motherhood--one short generation--the culture had gone completely mad.”

ChildrenTodayTurnsCultureParentLinesMy OwnRoomsTalkingClassPovertyGoneFiveTeacherViolenceGenerationsChildhoodDrugConcernSuicideMadAddAddictionMotherhoodAidsFeaturesUsaPregnancyTeenageCleaningGangHomelessnessHomeworkAnorexiaDrug AddictionDrug AddictAdventGumChewingBulimiaSnapshotsHomicideParents And TeachersChewing GumTeenage PregnancyGang ViolenceAnorexia And Bulimia
Author:Mary Blakely
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“Finally, the illusions of validity and skill are supported by a powerful professional culture. We know that people can maintain an unshakeable faith in any proposition, however absurd, when they are sustained by a community of like-minded believers. Given the professional culture of the financial community, it is not surprising that large numbers of individuals in that world believe themselves to be among the chosen few who can do what they believe others cannot.”

PeopleKnowsWorldBelieveCultureIndividualGivenCan DoCommunityPowerfulNumbersSkillsIllusionInvestingFinancialBelieverChosenAbsurdSurprisingPropositionsLarge NumbersValidity
Book:Thinking, Fast and Slow
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“The die is cast in Canada: there are two ethnic and linguistic groups; each is too strong and too deeply rooted in the past, too firmly bound to a mother culture, to be able to swamp the other. But if the two will collaborate inside of a truly pluralist state, Canada could become a privileged place where the federalist form of government, which is the government of tomorrow's world, will be perfected.”

IfsWorldTwoStatesGovernmentAblePastFormMotherDiesCultureStrongGroupsTomorrowBoundsCastsCanadaRootedPrivilegedForms Of GovernmentSwampsFederalist
Author:Pierre Trudeau
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“For the artist, the goal of the painting or musical composition is not to convey literal truth, but an aspect of a universal truth that if successful, will continue to move and to touch people even as contexts, societies and cultures change. For the scientist, the goal of a theory is to convey "truth for now"--to replace an old truth, while accepting that someday this theory, too, will be replaced by a new "truth," because that is the way science advances.”

PeopleIfsWayMovingArtistCultureGoalAcceptingSuccessfulPaintingTheoryTruth IsAspectScientistUniversalMusicalSomedayCompositionReplacedLiteralUniversal TruthCulture ChangeSociety And CultureMusical Composition
Author:Daniel Levitin
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“When people in organizations feel too secure, it's because there aren't any significant outcomes as a result of what they do. Whatever you do, nothing much different happens. This also means there are no important pay-offs if you risk by innovating. As there are no rewards for taking risks, then there's no sense of push in that institution's culture.”

PeopleIfsFeelsMeanImportantDifferentHappensCultureResultsPayRiskOrganizationInstitutionsRewardsSignificantSecureOutcomesTaking Risks
Author:Judith M Bardwick
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“If one believes philosophers, then what we call religion is only a deliberately popularized or an instinctively artless philosophy. Poets seem to consider religion rather as a variation of poetry which by misjudging its proper beautiful game takes itself too seriously and one-sidedly. Philosophy, however, admits and recognizes that it can begin and complete itself only with religion. Poetry seeks only to strive for the infinite and despises worldly utility and culture, which are the true antitheses of religion. Eternal peace among artists is thus not far away.”

IfsBelievePhilosophySeemsBeautifulPoetryArtistReligionCultureGamesPoetEternalPhilosophicalInfiniteStrivePhilosopherDespiseFar AwayWorldlyUtilityVariationAntithesisEternal Peace
Author:Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
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“It is characteristic of the barbarian ... to insist upon seeing a thing "as it is." The desire testifies that he has nothing in himself with which to spiritualize it; the relation is one of thing to thing without the intercession of the imagination. Impatient of the veiling with which the man of higher type gives the world imaginative meaning, the barbarian and the Philistine, who is the barbarian living amid culture, demands the access of immediacy. Where the former wishes representation, the latter insists upon starkness of materiality, suspecting rightly that forms will mean restraint.”

MenWorldGivingMeanFormDesireCultureWishImaginationSeeingHe ManTypeHigherDemandRelationAccessFormerCharacteristicsLatterRepresentationRestraintImaginativeImpatientBarbariansIntercessionImmediacyPhilistinesMateriality
Author:Richard M. Weaver
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“The member of a culture ... purposely avoids the relationship of intimacy; he wants the object somehow depicted and fictionalized. ... He is embarrassed when this is taken out of its context of proper sentiments and presented bare, for he feels that this is a reintrusion of that world which his whole conscious effort has sought to banish. Forms and conventions are the ladder of ascent. And hence the speechlessness of the man of culture when he beholds the barbarian tearing aside some veil which is half adornment, half concealment.”

MenWorldWantFeelsWholeFormCultureEffortHalfTakenObjectsHe ManMembersConsciousIntimacySentimentsConventionsEmbarrassedVeilsLaddersBarbariansAscentConcealmentAdornment
Author:Richard M. Weaver
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“Those who are guilty of the argumentum ad ignorantiam profess belief in something because its opposite cannot be proved ... In the realm where "prejudice" is now most an issue, it normally takes a form like this: you cannot prove by the method of statistics and quantitative measurement that men are not equal. Therefore all men are equal. ... You cannot prove again by the methods of science that one culture is higher than another. Therefore the culture of the Digger Indians is just a good as that of Muncie, Indiana, or thirteenth-century France.”

MenFormCultureBeliefIssuesCenturyHigherProveEqualOppositesPrejudiceMethodGuiltyFranceRealmsStatisticsAdsMeasurementIndiana
Author:Richard M. Weaver
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“There are some despotic governments so filled with a feeling of insecurity that they regard the free life of culture as a threat to their existence. ... On the other extreme is the kind of popular government which is so distrustful of all forms of distinction that it sees even in the cultivated individual a menace to its existence. Such states are likely to maintain a pressure which discourages cultural endeavor, although the pressure may be exerted through social channels.”

KindMayStatesFeelingsGovernmentFormCultureIndividualSocialExistencePressureRegardFilledThreatExtremesDistinctionInsecurityEndeavorDiscouragingMenaceFree Life
Author:Richard M. Weaver
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“Until I came to IBM, I probably would have told you that culture was just one among several important elements in any organization's makeup and success - along with vision, strategy, marketing, financials, and the like... I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn't just one aspect of the game, it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.”

PeopleImportantEndsValuesCultureGamesBusinessVisionElementsCapacityAspectOrganizationStrategyEntrepreneurMarketingCorporationsMy TimeJust OneCollectivesMakeupCeoIbm
Author:Lou Gerstner
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“in order to confer their lost Nationality upon exiled Jews , the British with the help of the League of Nations began to rehabilitate the old Hebrew country, Palestine, with its long lost children. The Jews had maintained their race, religion, culture and language; and all they wanted was their natural territory to complete their Nationality. The reconstruction of the Hebrew Nation on Palestine is just an affirmation of the fact that Country, Race, Religion, Culture and Language must exist unequivocally together to form the Nation idea.”

ChildrenLongIdeasCountryFactsHelpingWantedTogetherFormOrderCultureLostLanguageNationsNaturalRaceJewBritishLeagueTerritoryAffirmationPalestineNationalityHebrewReconstructionLeague Of NationsCulture And LanguageLost Child
Author:M. S. Golwalkar
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“The best hopes of any community rest upon that class of its gifted young men who are not encumbered with large possessions.... I now speak of extensive scholarship and ripe culture in science and art.... It is not large possessions, it is large expectations, or rather large hopes, that stimulate the ambition of the young.”

MenArtYoungCultureSpeakCommunityClassAmbitionExpectationsPossessionYoung ManGiftedScholarshipRipeArt And ScienceHoping For The Best
Author:Rutherford B. Hayes
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“Tracing the progress of mankind in the ascending path of civilization, and moral and intellectual culture, our fathers found that the divine ordinance of government, in every stage of the ascent, was adjustable on principles of common reason to the actual condition of a people, and always had for its objects, in the benevolent councils of the divine wisdom, the happiness, the expansion, the security, the elevation of society, and the redemption of man. They sought in vain for any title of authority of man over man, except of superior capacity and higher morality.”

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Author:William M. Evarts
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“And there is also the paradox that the dominating culture imbues the Indian past with great meaning and significance; it is valued more because it is seen as part of the past. And it is the romantic past, not the present, that holds meaning and spiritual significance for so many members of the dominating culture. It has seemed so strange to me that the larger culture, with its own absence of spirit and lack of attachment for the land, respects these very things about Indian traditions, without adopting those respected ways themselves.”

WayPastSpiritualSpiritCultureLandStrangeMembersTraditionAbsenceIndianSignificanceAttachmentParadoxAdoptingHold MeDominating
Author:Linda Hogan
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“In my art and life, I really strive to reverse the old adage that what you see is what you get. If I can be Coyote and practice my sneak-up, I can engage the viewers from a distance with one image and lure them in for exposure to another layer, which changes the initial view into quite a different reality. After all, that is what ethnic culture is all about - or even an ongoing relationship. What you see on the surface is never the same again one you begin to plumb the depths.”

IfsArtI CanDifferentRealityCultureViewsPracticeDistanceStriveDepthSurfaceLayersReverseViewersExposureInitialsOngoingAdagesSneakLureSuperficialityCoyotesArt And LifeDifferent Realities
Author:Jaune Quick–to–See Smith
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