Culture Quotes

Data can bear on policy issues, but many of our opinions about policy are grounded in premises about the nature of human life and human society that are beyond the reach of data.

~ Charles Murray

Culture is taking the background you come from and either running with it or running from it.

~ Imani Nettles

the most lovable of exceptional American qualities (is) our tradition of insisting that we are part of the middle class, even if we aren’t, and of interacting with our fellow citizens as if we were all middle class.

~ Charles Murray

She had come to understand that American parenting was a juggling of anxieties, and that it came with having too much food: a sated belly gave Americans time to worry that their child might have a rare disease that they had just read about, made them think they had the right to protect their child from disappointment and want and failure. A sated belly gave Americans the luxury of praising themselves for being good parents, as if caring for one's child was the exception rather than the rule.

~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Peace is found when people stand for morality and rejectculture. Defend freedom at all costs and at all times and peacewill rule the world instead of tyrants.

~ Jeremy Locke

Good form without knowing it is the best form of all.

~ J.m. Barrie

Tarot is a practice rich with history and cultural knowledge. It is a science of the mind.

~ Benebell Wen

Being well known for being well-known did not necessarily imply intelligence.

~ David Halberstam

Lack of culture equals to parallel lives, however through art, oneness, sanity and sense of belonging is restored.

~ Unarine Ramaru

Public symbols matter. They are one of the ways we tell each other, and the world, what we honor.

~ Michael W. Mcconnell

I find myself constantly taking apart be taken-for-granted.

~ Rebekah Nathan

All civilizations have needed a stable basis of short term value.

~ Jay Weiser

Their lot in life, their station, became a part of their personalities and helped to for my worldview.

~ John Kasich

Bobby Kennedy said that when he had been a boy there were three major influences on children – the home, the church, and the school – and now there was a fourth – television.

~ David Halberstam

Newspapers might have as much to do in shaping the course of public events as politicians

~ David Halberstam

In describing the ways that religious and other types of communities appropriate and understand their histories, among both fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists, the sociologist Anthony Giddens utilizes the term “reflexivity” and states that it is the characteristic of “all human action.” Reflexivity takes place when individuals and/or communities utilize their perceptions of their histories as a way of guiding their present and future actions. For Giddens, tradition is a means of “handling time and space, which asserts any particular activity or experience with the community of past, present, and future, these in turn being structured by recurrent social practices.” In light of this, tradition is a set of entities which religious communities and cultures continually reconstruct within certain parameters. Religions are not completely static in that almost every new generation reinvents the religious and cultural inheritance from the generations that preceded it.

~ Jon Armajani

If the norm of the society is corrupted, then objective journalism is corrupted too, for it must not challenge the norm. It must accept the norm.

~ David Halberstam

Education was central to reporting.

~ David Halberstam

Vaccination was, and is, thoroughly infused with our politics, our social values, and our cultural norms. By acknowledging and understanding the divergent reasons why we've vaccinated in the past, however, we just may ensure the continued success of vaccination in the future.

~ Elena Conis

Until he (Time's founder Henry Luce) arrived, news was crime and politics.

~ David Halberstam

Rebelling against the status quo was one of the definitions of conservatism.

~ Rick Perlstein

I simply decided once and for all to liberate myself from the anxiety of notoriety and the urge to be a part of that circle of successful people, those who believe they have won who-knows-what

~ Elena Ferrante

In a servant leadership culture we learn by choice or example that if we want to be great, we have to serve others respectfully.

~ Vern Dosch

All topics should be studied through the lens of the Gospel.

~ C.j. Mahaney

Anthropologist Gary Weaver suggested looking at culture as a kind of iceberg: one portion is clearly visible above the surface of the water, while the much larger chunk of ice is hidden below. The part above the water can be considered surface culture––what we can physically see or hear, including behavior, words, customs, language, and traditions. Underneath the water, invisible to all, is the deep culture. This place includes our beliefs, values, assumptions, worldview, and thought processes.

~ David C. Pollock

When we think of the word culture, obvious representations such as how to dress, eat, speak, and act like those around us come to mind. But learning culture is more than learning conformity to external patterns of behavior. Culture is also a system of shared concepts, beliefs, and values. It is the framework from which we interpret and make sense of life and the world around us.

~ David C. Pollock

Cynicism is often seen as a rebellious attitude in western popular culture, but in reality, our cynicism advances the desires of the powerful: cynicism is obedience.

~ Alex Steffen

There are heroes and schmucks in all worlds. The most important thing is whether you are willing to engage in moral struggle against yourself.

~ David Brooks

Believe it or not, philosophy has consequences.

~ Jonathan V. Last

Caregivers, like all of us, inevitably reflect their culture's attitude toward children and life. The story goes that when Pearl Buck was a child in China, someone asked how she compared her mother to her Chinese amah. Buck replied, If I want to have a story read, I go to my mother. But if I fall down and need to be comforted, I go to my amah. Her mother's culture valued teaching and learning, while her amah's placed a greater value on nurture. Even as a child, Buck instinctively knew the difference.

~ David C. Pollock

He had to grow his own NCOs.

~ Tom Clancy

When their voices didn't reach my ears,I rebelled against my own skin too young to realize that without their stories I would starve.

~ Kiana Davis

Authentic leadership is at the root of cultures of great innovation, engagement, outstanding client experiences, and growth.

~ Henna Inam

To talk of humans as 'transcendent' is not to ascribe to them spiritual properties. It is, rather, to recognize that as subjects we have the ability to transform our selves, our natures, our world—an ability denied to any other physical being. In the six million years since the human and chimpanzee lines first diverged on either side of Africa's Great Rift Valley, the behaviour and lifestyles of chimpanzees have barely changed. Human behaviour and lifestyles clearly have. Humans have learnt to learn from previous generations, to improve upon their work, and to establish a momentum to human life and culture that has taken us from cave art to quantum physics and the conquest of space. It is this capacity for constant innovation that distinguishes humans from all other animals. All animals have an evolutionary past. Only humans make history.

~ Kenan Malik

A nation lives by its myths and heroes. Many societies have survived defeat and invasion, even political and economic collapse. None has survived the corruption of its picture of itself. High and popular art are not in competition here. Both may help citizens decide what they are and what they admire. In our age, however, high art has given up speaking to the body of its fellow citizens. It devotes itself to technical displays that can appeal only to other technicians.

~ E. Christian Kopff

Amusement has always been the great moving force behind culture.

~ Italo Calvino

How can we distinguish what is biologically determined from what people merely try to justify through biological myths? A good rule of thumb is ‘Biology enables, Culture forbids.’ Biology is willing to tolerate a very wide spectrum of possibilities. It’s culture that obliges people to realize some possibilities while forbidding others. Biology enables women to have children – some cultures oblige women to realize this possibility. Biology enables men to enjoy sex with one another – some cultures forbid them to realize this possibility. Culture tends to argue that it forbids only that which is unnatural. But from a biological perspective, nothing is unnatural. Whatever is possible is by definition also natural. A truly unnatural behavior, one that goes against the laws of nature, simply cannot exist.

~ Yuval Noah Harari

The study of man is the study of his extensions.

~ Edward T. Hall

In her fury she'd broken into Valencian, indicating the deepest possible roots in the land. I was impressed with how deeply she was from here, in a way I could never imagine being from anywhere, not even my home town.

~ Elisabeth Eaves

It is characteristic of all extension systems to be treated as distinct and separate from the user and to take on an identity of their own. Religions, philosophies, literature, and art illustrate this. After a time, the extended system accretes to itself a past and a history as well as a body of knowledge and skills that can be learned. Such systems can be studied and appreciated as entities in themselves.

~ Edward T. Hall