Quotes About Culture

If culture did not filter, it would be inane — as inane as the formless, boundless Internet is on its own. And if we all possessed the boundless knowledge of the Web, we would be idiots! Culture is an instrument for making a hierarchical system of intellectual labor.

Hoy no salir en televisión es un signo de elegancia.

New Orleans is not in the grip of a neurosis of a denied past; it passes out memories generously like a great lord; it doesn't have to pursue the real thing.

Herkes kendi geleneklerine uymayana barbarl?k der" - Montaigne 16. Yüzy?l Rönesans Ça??

In other words, to see if through these cultural phenomena a new Middle Ages is to take shape, a time of secular mystics, more inclined to monastic withdrawal than to civic participation. We should see how much, as antidote or as antistrophe, the old techniques of reason may apply, the arts of the Trivium, logic, dialectic, rhetoric. As we suspect that anyone who goes on stubbornly practicing them will be accused of impiety.

most of them won't have a book in the house, though, when they have to, they'll talk about the latest book that's selling millions of copies around the world. Our readers may not read books, but they are fascinated by great eccentric painters who sell for billions.

The Internet gives us everything and forces us to filter it not by the workings of culture, but with our own brains. This risks creating six billion separate encyclopedias, which would prevent any common understanding whatsoever.

In America you don't say, "Give me another coffee"; you ask for "More coffee"; you don't say that cigarette A is longer than cigarette B, but that there's "more" of it, more than you're used to having, more than you might want, leaving a surplus to throw away—that's prosperity.

William made an ejaculation in his own language that I didn't understand, nor did the abbot understand it, and perhaps it was best for us both, because the word William uttered had an obscene hissing sound.

European identity, it seems, is only perceived by educated people. And that is sad, but it is a start.

They [the Templars] had read Avicenna, and they were not ignorant, like the Europeans. How could you live alongside a tolerant, mystical, libertine culture for two centuries without succumbing to its allure, particularly when you compared it to Western culture, which was crude, vulgar, barbaric, and Germanic?

Diotallevi and Belbo, both from Piedmont, often claimed that any good Piedmontese had the ability to listen politely, look you in the eye, and say "You think so?" in a tone of such apparent sincerity that you immediately felt his profound disapproval

The Frenchman doesn't really know what he wants, but knows perfectly well that he doesn't want what he has. And the only way he knows of saying it is by singing songs.

Nu înÈ›elegeam niciodat? când glumea. Pe la noi, când se glumeÅŸte, se spune ceva, apoi se râde zgomotos, încât toÈ›i s? poat? lua parte la glum?. Guglielmo râdea, în schimb, numai când spunea lucruri serioase ÅŸi r?mânea foarte serios când de fapt glumea.

Pero los periódicos ¿siguen las tendencias de la gente o las crean? —Ambas cosas, señorita Fresia. La gente al principio no sabe qué tendencia tiene, luego nosotros se lo decimos y entonces la gente se da cuenta de que la tiene.

religion is or has sometimes been the opium of the people, more often than not it has been its cocaine.

The German lives in a state of perpetual intestinal embarrassment due to an excess of beer and the pork sausages on which he gorges himself.

All I know about the Jews is what my grandfather taught me. They are the most godless people, he used to say. They start off from the idea that good must happen here, not beyond the grave. Therefore, they work only for the conquest of this world.

En mi época, quienes sabían alemán ya no se licenciaban. Se pasaban el resto de su vida sabiendo alemán. Creo que hoy en día sucede lo mismo con el chino. —Yo lo conozco poco, por eso hago mi tesis.

Chi legge avrà vissuto 5000 anni. Perché la letteratura è un'immortalità all'indietro

By studying the human signifying activity it influences its course.

We cannot initiate a dialogue between different cultures on identical class problems if we do not first resolve the problem of the symbolic superstructures through which different civilizations represent to themselves the same political and social problems.

Desgraciadamente, «posmoderno» es un término que sirve para cualquier cosa. Tengo la impresión de que hoy se aplica a todo lo que le gusta a quien lo utiliza. Por

But when I told him that these lords hoped to find the "truffle" underground, to eat it, he thought I had said they were seeking "der Teufel," the Devil, and he blessed himself devoutly, looking at me in amazement.