Quotes About Culture

The Day America Told the Truth, James Patterson and Peter Kim

Nothing is more poisonous than the spirit of entitlement that permeates our culture and sometimes, sadly, our churches.

Fashion, in Crisp's view, is the art of denying one's individuality in order to adopt the uniforms and dictates of culture, as determined by people who have never met you, and do not care whether you exist. The implicit goal is to cover your imperfections and become something you are not: a person who is acceptable in the eyes of others. A pleasing shell with no discernible interior. In Crisp's words, "Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are.

Of all the religions in the world, there is none with the wealth of music that the Christian faith offers.

And so the abnormal is now normal in entertainment, because the normal is treated as subnormal in the world of the media. That, I can assure you, is consciously done.

Starting at life's cryptogram, we either see His name unmistakably resplendent or we see the confusion of religions with no single message, just garbled beliefs that plague our existence, each justified by the voice of culture.

In some countries you love your neighbors, and in others you eat them.

Our society is walking through a maze of cultural land mines and the heaviest price is exacted as we send our children on ahead.

Yet there is nothing so vulgar left in our present cultural experience for which some professor cannot be found somewhere to justify it. Reason has died.

We make a mistake in thinking that something is right or wrong because culture deems it such. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, culture may approve or disapprove, but if there is no overarching umbrella of truth beyond culture, our times may wreak havoc in the name of culture. Slavery is an example of this. People did not flinch at the barbaric practices that were tolerated for so long. The abuse of marriage is no less a crime against humanity.

Chinese proverb says, "If you want to know what water is, don't ask the fish." Most Hindus know little about Hinduism's scriptures or its development in dogma. Most Buddhists know little about Buddhism. Religion is much more a culture to most people than it is a carefully thought-through system of truth. Even Islam finds the same ignorance. Dare I say most Christians know very little about the teaching and history of their own beliefs.

More often than not religious rites are performed out of fear or superstition. And they are seldom questioned or examined.

Culture is critical in marriage because in a real sense, culture is the behavioral expression of one's values, appreciations, tastes, and relational style in both simple and serious matters of life. Add to this the dimensions of language and cultural memory, and you have worlds within worlds. In effect, culture provides the how and why of an individual's behavior.

The world was made for the body, the body was made for the soul, and the soul was made for God. When that discovery is made and the soul is restored in a disfigured culture, we find the greatest treasure of all–and it is nearer to us than we realize.

Young dreams may be wild ones, but they are never corrected by ridiculing them. They must be steered by a loving voice that has earned the right to be heard, not one enforced by means of power. This is a very difficult lesson for parents to learn. And as cultures lose their restraining power, there will be greater need for mutual love and respect between parents and children if a relationship of trust is to be built, rather than banking on authority because of position.

A society that hates laws that guard the soul despises not so much the laws as much as it despises the very thought of a soul. Those who belong to such a society consider the flesh the totality of their being.

If the loss of shame was the child of secularization, the loss of reason is the child of pluralization.

A knowledge and appreciation of history is difficult for a culture so enthralled by the moment, a culture that shuns the discipline of a larger context in any study. Unfortunately this loss of historical interest has made the present difficult to address because the context of the past is imperative if we are to salvage the future.

According to a recent study by a major university, the average college student pursues "sex without strings and marriage without rings.

Every culture exploits some segment of society in order to entertain hungers, either private or public. We are all pleasure seekers, and what gives us pleasure is a revelation of our values.

At a time in our cultural history when the West is looking more like the East and the East is covertly trying to emulate the West, this is much needed. Religions are making a revival, but often as a hybrid of western marketing techniques and eastern mythology—a devastating combination of seduction through media and mysticism.

His stories are so Eastern

One can go down the line and see that every claim that Jesus made of Himself challenged my culture's most basic assumptions about life and meaning. (It is important to remember, of course, that these basic religions within the Indian framework are also not in concert with each other. Buddha was a Hindu before he rejected some of Hinduism's fundamental doctrines and conceived in their place the Buddhist way. Islam radically differs from Hinduism.) Ironically

Thirteen centuries ago, Europe was able to stop the theocratic Islamic tidal wave because it had a faith to defend. The value-less culture of today will not be able to withstand the attack.