Quotes About Culture

A long time ago, daughter, we Chinese married strangers, because most of the people who lived near us were of the same sae. By the time a bride could visit her parents, perhaps two weeks had passed. And sometimes it was such a distance that the 'bride' arrived with one fat baby clingingtoher skirts and another in her arms. But it remains our tradition to honor a married daughter on her first visit home, even when her journey is from the shop next door.

I have never put a piece of ice into my mouth, or taken an iced drink. Cold liquid rushing down into a man's stomach is unnatural, as anyone with common sense must agree, and 1 have observed that old people who take iced drinks become stiff and move painfully. Thailand is very hot, and cold drinks only increase the heat within our bodies. I decided long ago to drink only hot tea, which cools the blood.

But why bother?" asked Weng Kim. "That is exactly the point, Weng Kim. We are Chinese, and Chinese people do bother. Thais were still eating rice with their fingers fifty years ago, and now they use whatever the foreigners use. We have used chopsticks since ancient times; they worked better for the purpose intended than fingers did then, and better than forks and spoons do now.

I read in a magazine the other day that Hindu Indians do not mourn their dead; instead they rejoice, believing that the loved one has gone to a better place. I cannot imagine that, myself, for how can the heart not ache with the sorrow of that terrible finality? Do these people have no feelings?

Die Künste, die den Müll der Welt zu spiegeln vorgeben, vermehren ihn nur.

Simplificando, podría decirse que cada hombre se encuentra situado en una área social de matrimonio, y la regla establece que puede tomar esposa fácilmente en su área y en las áreas inferiores.

En las relaciones entre los sexos y en las bodas era donde más se ponía de manifiesto la conciencia de la jerarquía social.

The reason why there are so many narrow-minded people in the world is, because there is so little travelling in it.

There would not be so much harm in the giddy following the fashions, if somehow the wise could always set them.

A great destiny needs a generous diet.... What can be expected of a people that live on macaroni!

Too much society makes a man frivolous; too little, a savage.

Within the sacred walls of libraries we find the best thoughts, the purest feelings, and the most exalted imaginings of our race.

The best people in a dying culture are the outcasts considered crazy by the leaders; the ones most disillusioned with their own culture. In Yeats' phrase, "the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." Intense emotional attachment to any value, any virtue, any set of "shoulds" is a disease, a mental illness, a condition of self-murder and cultural assassination.

We value education, but we do not understand its history.

a gentleman today—however we may characterize him—may find his environment less congenial to his temperament.

It is frequently alleged that all human meaning, morality, and values can be nothing more than whatever human beings of different times and cultures subjectively and contingently construct for themselves, or at least that we cannot know whether any among them might be more than this.

On one side of the desk sits a bowl of dog biscuits for employees who bring their dogs to the office (a rare perk in a company that makes employees pay for parking and snacks).

I can order in Chinese, if you'd like." She

We should a hire a lawyer," I said. "A solicitor," Win said, correcting me. "We're in London. We don't use the term 'lawyer,' Myron. We say solicitor." I

We should a hire a lawyer," I said. "A solicitor," Win said, correcting me. "We're in London. We don't use the term 'lawyer,' Myron. We say solicitor." I just looked at him, refraining from asking, How about the term "anal douche bag"? Do we use that in London?

Too many of our insanities are tolerated because they are harmless on an individual level—but multiply them by a millionfold and you have a nation that is culturally sick. These things stem from each individual's conception of himself—which he arbitrarily assumes to be the nature of the world as well. These conceptions are haphazardly picked up during youth—along with all of the other opinions, neuroses, hangups and etceteras common to the human animal.

Also England is a good country for introverts; they have a place in society for the introvert, which the United States has not.

That's what happens, friends. It gets so damned depressing, coming up against the cultural hari-kiri we keep committing, that cynicism becomes the only supportable attitude. And then the kids prove they've got it. Even I, anxious to give them every possible point, begin to suspect the rot goes from top to bottom, young and old alike. And then the kids do me in. They come up with solid gold, and make me feel like the idiot I certainly am, on occasion.

Poor lizards. What joys they missed. Had they not been so culturally deprived, they might have sunk into the swamps in a mere three thousand years.