Quotes About Culture

What differentiates societies, and beings within societies, is what they define as pleasurable. If a society is structured largely around pleasures of the body, it is operating at a different level from a society structured around pleasures of the soul.

This switch will entail a complete shift of your cultural story. Today, what you call "success" in your culture is measured largely by how much you "get," by how much honor and money and power and possessions you amass. In the New Culture "success" will be measured by how much you cause others to amass.

You have created a society in which it is very not okay to want to die—very not okay to be very okay with death.

A person's relationship with food is one of their most important relationships.

her cheeks a slight Asian red;

He asked the class how many of us were taking computer science, and everybody but me and this one girl who didn't speak English raised their hands.

Our nation is turning into an idiocracy.

After the 9/11 attacks, when President George W. Bush, in a speech aimed at distinguishing the U.S. from the Muslim fundamentalists, said, Our God is the God who named the stars. The problem is two-thirds of all the stars that have names, have Arabic names. I don't think he knew this. This would confound the point that he was making.

exploration is hardly ever motivated by the desire to explore. Part the curtains of curiosity, and you'll find individuals hungry for political, cultural, or economic dominion funding the expedition.

A legacy rises to become culture only when its elements are so common that they no longer attract comment—not because people have lost interest, but because people cannot imagine a world without them.

El problema de no advertir la cultura propia es uno de los grandes placeres de viajar al extranjero: descubrir lo que uno no ha visto en el propio país y advertir lo que los demás no conocen acerca de ellos mismos.

the Disney pantheon that if you wear clothes, you can own other animals who do not

It is possibly worth mentioning at this point that Mr. Young thought that paparazzi was a kind of Italian linoleum.

I don't like to see Shakespeare in a theater. I like to see Shakespeare in the park.

Evidently, women have eating disorders, men have sex addiction. I suppose both share the same obsession: women's bodies.

At most, he was introducing me to a body of knowledge I could draw from, like the writings of Joseph Campbell or the teaching of the Buddha or the lyrics of Jay-Z. After

The distinction between a Christian and a pagan is no longer obvious. The

Mrs. Rahman. It was impossible to know whether Mokta

In Desh, you can make your plans, but they usually do not succeed. But in America you make your plans and then they happen.

She wasn't any more familiar with boutique shopping in Bombay or the challenges of dating someone in the movie industry, but she knew what it was to feel that you would never become fully adult in the country where you lived, would never understand the jokes or master the graces that came so naturally to everyone around you.

There were a lot of other things about village life she thought might surprise her new friend, but she didn't want to undermine Kim's admiration for her culture, which she thought was genuine if not especially well informed.

I wasn't sure about that, but one never knows. Sometimes a neighborhood, like a culture or civilization, is strong enough to absorb and acculturate any number of newcomers. But I don't know if that's true around here any longer. The outward forms and appearances look the same - [...]- but the substance has been altered.

I suppose you could say that the Russians had a big appetite for life, or you could say they were dissolute and decadent, which was the opposite side of the same ruble.

These types of books usually tried to be a little PC and pull some punches when discussing the questionable locales their readers had chosen to travel to. Mogadishu has a rich and vibrant cultural heritage, but do your best to never leave your hotel.