Quotes About Culture

She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm.

In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody.

Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation, and conversation must have a common basis, and between two people of widely different culture the only common basis possible is the lowest level.

When good Americans die, they go to Paris'. 'Where do bad Americans go?' 'They stay in America'.

Oh! it is absurd to have a hard-and-fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.

To be really mediæval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes.

When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss Art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss Money

Now art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.

We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful.

Love is not fashionable anymore; the poets have killed it.

We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.

Travel improves the mind wonderfully, and does away with all one's prejudices.

Believe me, no civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever knows what a pleasure is.

To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture.

The Greek word clepsydra, given to ancient water clocks, comes from the amalgamation of the Greek words for water and to steal.

Survival, in fact, is about the connection between things. [Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism]

that all good math had come from the Arabs, everyone knew that.

She read in a high African singsong that I guess came down along the line from Ghana long ago, something that she made American, but tied us to a home we'd never seen.

As the tissues of the body fester and rot under X rays, so under the sun fester and rot Anglo-Saxonism and Teutonism and Scandinavianism if left too long beneath its influence.

By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.

If one should desire to know whether a kingdom is well governed, if its morals are good or bad, the quality of its music will furnish the answer.

Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?

A man without a mustache is a man without a soul.

An educated woman is a worthless woman.