Quotes About Culture

that "meaning" in these traditions has very little to do with what people find meaningful in their lives.

If the Lord were to appear this day in England as once in Palestine, He would not come in the halo of the painters or with that wintry shine of effeminate beauty, of sweet weakness, in which it is their helpless custom to represent Him.

For a country run by a woman, Britain was still a nation in awe of its men.

It is only when you meet someone of a different culture from yourself that you begin to realise what your own beliefs really are.

Tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country.

men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them.

When I was young and had no sense In far-off Mandalay I lost my heart to a Burmese girl As lovely as the day. Her skin was gold, her hair was jet, her teeth were ivory; I said, For twenty silver pieces, Maiden, sleep with me. She looked at me, so pure, so sad, The loveliest thing alive, And in her lisping, virgin voice, Stood out for twenty-five.

Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism.

I would sooner be a foreigner in Spain than in most countries. How easy it is to make friends in Spain!

And if our book consumption remains as low as it has been, at least let us admit that it is because reading is a less exciting pastime than going to the dogs, the pictures or the pub, and not because books, whether bought or borrowed, are too expensive.

It appeared that even in Barcelona there were hardly any bullfights nowadays; for some reason all the best matadors were Fascists.

It is only when you meet someone of a different culture from yourself that you begin to realize what your own beliefs really are.

For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life trying to impress the 'natives,' and so in every crisis he has got to do what the 'natives' expect of him... A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things.

When one says that a writer is fashionable one practically always means that he is admired by people under thirty.

Of its very nature swearing is as irrational as magic — indeed, it is a species of magic.

Antiguamente, las diferencias de clase no sólo habían sido inevitables, sino deseables. La desigualdad era el precio de la civilización.

George Orwell on lefty/liberalism :- "the emotional shallowness of a left intelligentsia that lives in a world of ideas not reality, severed from the common culture of the country.

There was a whole chain of separate departments dealing with proletarian literature, music, drama and entertainment generally. Here were produced rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimental songs ...

it was a stirring tune, something between 'Clementine' and 'La Cucuracha'.

In England patriotism takes different forms in different classes, but it runs like a connecting thread through nearly all of them. Only the Europeanized intelligentsia are really immune to it.

In any town in India the European Club is the spiritual citadel, the real seat of the British power, the Nirvana for which native officials and millionaires pine in vain.

Society is wrong somewhere at the root.

Vi?š bija aizmirsis, ka vairums ?aužu sveš? zem? j?tas labi tikai tad, ja var noniecin?t t?s iedz?vot?jus.

If I were forced to compare Tolstoy with Dickens , I should say that Tolstoy's appeal will probably be wider in the long run, because Dickens is scarcely intelligible outside the English-speaking culture; on the other hand, Dickens is able to reach simple people, which Tolstoy is not. Tolstoy's characters can cross a frontier, Dickens's can be portrayed on a cigarette-card. But one is no more obliged to choose between them than between a sausage and a rose.