Culture Quotes

"The Holocaust committed by the Nazis turned this country, where most of the European Jews used to live and where their culture used to flourish, into a massive grave. This is why initiatives to revive Jewish culture in Poland is so important"

Marek Belka, Economist

"The concept that an artist would be revered by popular culture is an immediate dismissal of his relevance as an artist"

Thomas Kinkade, Artist

"There are some liberals eager to embrace a culture void of morals, but the majority of America is made up of honest, hard-working families who turned out in droves to protect the traditional way of life"

John Doolittle, Politician

"The role of the federal government should be neutral toward culture just as it is toward religion"

Preston Manning, Politician

"I certainly can't speak for all cultures or all societies, but it's clear that in America, poetry serves a very marginal purpose. It's not part of the cultural mainstream"

Mark Strand, Poet

"Towns are suffering from all these things, we should unite until we are all satisfied, man cannot be killing each other as if we were animals, as if we had no culture; that is a lack of culture"

Compay Segundo, Musician

"Greenies have been part of the clubhouse culture longer than card games"

Michael Wilbon, Journalist

"The whole drive of western culture, the part of it which is serious, is towards an extreme objectification. It's carried to the point where the human subject is treated almost as if it's dirt in the works of a watch"

Henry Flynt, Artist

"I see little of more importance to the future of our country and of civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him"

Pauline Kael, Critic

"There is something terribly wrong with a culture inebriated by noise and gregariousness"

George Steiner, Critic

"The culture is going into a psychological depression. We are concerned about our place in the world, about being competitive: Will my children have as much as I have? Will I ever own my own home? How can I pay for a new car? Are immigrants taking away my white world?"

James Hillman, Psychologist

"By 3000 B.C. the art of Egypt was so ripe and so far advanced that it is surprising to find any student of early culture proposing that the crude contemporary art of the early Babylonians is the product of a civilization earlier than that of the Nile"

James H. Breasted

"Culture is how biology responds and makes its living conditions better"

C. J. Cherryh, Writer

"We are the meeting place, an entity that's trying to connect faith and culture"

William P. Leahy, Educator

"Gay culture is surviving and thriving. Some activists believe the recent rise in homophobic violence might be a gauge of the success of positive gay images"

Lance Loud, Actor

"The style of the Bible in general is singularly adapted to men of every class and grade of culture, affording the child the simple nourishment for its religious wants, and the profoundest thinker inexhaustible matter of study"

Philip Schaff, Theologian

"Concerning culture as a process, one would say that it means learning a great many things and then forgetting them; and the forgetting is as necessary as the learning"

Albert J. Nock, Philosopher

"According to this view, democracy is a product of western culture, and it cannot be applied to the Middle East which has a different cultural, religious, sociological and historical background"

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President

"And it is this sense that some of us have to contribute to the culture, to the society in ways that may hurt financially, so what? We do it because we are born to do it, we feel we have no other choice and so be it"

Gunther Schuller, Composer

"It's an old ploy of the bourgeoisie. They keep a standing 'art' to defend their collapsing culture"

George Grosz, Artist

"Not all intelligence can be artificial now, so if we make a mistake, the consequences are no longer simply located within an institution or a national culture"

William Irwin Thompson, Philosopher

"For the first time in human evolution, the individual life is long enough, and the cultural transformation swift enough, that the individual mind is now a constituent player in the global transformation of human culture"

William Irwin Thompson, Philosopher

"Throughout history, it took centuries for the habits of one culture to materially affect another. Now, that which becomes popular in one country can sweep through others within months"

Dee Hock, Businessman

"I love the culture of grilling. It creates an atmosphere that is festive but casual"

Bobby Flay, Celebrity

"Being an American is such a rich environment, because there's so many people from other countries and cultures, and through that you're able to see other people's experiences"

Rick Yune, Actor

"Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why"

Henry Van Dyke, Poet

"There are a lot of wonderful things created in our culture that have been ignored that can speak to them"

David Amram, Composer

"The idea of the peace movement and of people who spent their entire lives trying to have a more egalitarian, just society, suddenly became swamped by the record industry, by the new rock and roll culture, and by the idea of not trusting anyone over thirty"

David Amram, Composer

"Soft addictions are an alluring, seductive aspect of our culture - they are easy to attain and socially acceptable, they are even encouraged in many cases. Yet they are lethal to the spirit"

Judith Wright, Poet

"Sometimes there's a snobbery among literary types that these people don't really get it, but in a lot of ways they get it more than the literati. There's a culture in the background that they understand and know. They get that deeper level"

Irvine Welsh, Novelist

"But now I feel off the grid. I feel that I am not part of the culture. And because I don't have a car I don't really go anywhere to buy things. In fact, I have been in a slow process of selling and giving away everything I own"

Vincent Kartheiser, Actor

"I did not become successful in my work through embracing or engaging in celebrity culture. I never signed away my privacy in exchange for success"

Steve Coogan, Comedian

"I have this massive love for the whole culture of pop music. It's my fascination, my ongoing passion"

Siobhan Fahey, Musician

"I'll miss the comments from the people on the street who love the show and who have felt its impact on the culture. I won't miss the shooting schedule, though!"

Dennis Franz, Actor

"But foremost, I do not subscribe to the view that Islamic culture and democracy cannot be reconciled"

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President

"While mainstream media is led by profit, ratings and popularist culture and filtered by the current political climate, Alternative Media is lead solely by the convictions of the campaign and film maker"

Ben Edwards, Entertainer

"It's typical of Italian culture that we only start to feel emotional about something when we have the possibility to see it in front of us. By February, Italy will have Olympic fever"

Alberto Tomba, Athlete

"Considered now as a possession, one may define culture as the residuum of a large body of useless knowledge that has been well and truly forgotten"

Albert J. Nock, Philosopher

"As a culture I see us as presently deprived of subtleties. The music is loud, the anger is elevated, sex seems lacking in sweetness and privacy"

Shelley Berman, Comedian

"We stand strong together - as Americans - many cultures, races and faiths, but one nation under God"

Bob Taft, Politician

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