Quotes About Culture

In the English language, the word "sadism" only goes back a hundred years or so. (It wasn't until 1897 that it first appeared in print, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.) In that sense, "sadism" is like "serial killer": a modern expression for an age-old phenomenon.

Simply put, here amid the kingdoms of this world we have no continuing city. That's why we dare not become attached to the passing values of any human culture.

The new Babylonian captivity is what we have done to ourselves, namely, the strange fascination with our contemporary culture evident across denominational and confessional lines.

The frenzy with which much of the church busies herself with things peripheral to the kingdom in a frantic attempt by her own ingenuity and effort to make God's name holy or make his kingdom come is a sign that something is radically wrong. The church has lost connection with Christ, her living head; she has listened to the siren calls of this world; she has succumbed to the prevailing culture instead of what Christ Jesus created her to be.

A man builds a house in England with the expectation of living in it and leaving it to his children; we shed our houses in America as easily as a snail does his shell.

The literature of a people must so ring from the sense of its nationality; and nationality is impossible without self-respect, and self-respect is impossible without liberty.

But who, sir, makes the trader? Who is most to blame? The enlightened, cultivated, intelligent man, who supports the system of which the trader is the inevitable result, or the poor trader himself? You make the public statement that calls for his trade, that debauches and depraves him, till he feels no shame in it; and in what are you better than he?

Yet some striking exceptions there are among us, from the fact that the negro is naturally more impressible to religious sentiment than the white.

It is the statement of missionaries, that, of all races of the earth, none have received the Gospel with such eager docility as the African. The principle of reliance and unquestioning faith, which is its foundation, is more a native element in this race than any other; and it has often been found among them, that a stray seed of truth, borne on some breeze of accident into hearts the most ignorant, has sprung up into fruit, whose abundance has shamed that of higher and more skilful culture.

Well," said Miss Ophelia, "do you think slavery right or wrong?" "I'm not going to have any of your horrid New England directness, cousin," said St. Clare, gayly.

I never saw any good of the French language, for my part, I must confess," said Miss Debby, "nor, for that matter, of the French nation either; they eat frogs, and break the Sabbath, and are as immoral as the old Canaanites.

With the coming of these people who know the language, we are losing our liberty to speak, he remarked to himself.

Please wait,' she said in Spanish, then repeated the words, 'Esperen, por favor,' remembering that the single verb meant both to wait and hope. This extraordinary language, she thought.

Drain your drink, come on. You don't leave a full glass in a pub. Charles II outlawed it.

The sum and substance of female education in America, as in England, is training women to consider marriage as the sole object in life, and to pretend that they do not think so.

Laws and customs may be creative of vice; and should be therefore perpetually under process of observation and correction: but laws and customs cannot be creative of virtue: they may encourage and help to preserve it; but they cannot originate it.

The experience of birth is vast. It is a diverse tapestry woven by cultural customs, shaped in personal choices, affected by biological factors, marked by political circumstances. Yet the nature of birth itself prevails in elegant design of simple complexity.

When outsiders criticize Americans, they regularly note that we seem self-centered, which we are. But few contend we are selfish, and with good reason; we are not.

The collision between a Christian mind and a solidly earthbound culture ought to be a violent one.

I used to go to Bourbon Street when I was a kid and there would be club after club after club of people who were around when the music started. I mean these are legendary, maybe not so well known, but legendary musicians.

I've been all over the world. I love New York, I love Paris, San Francisco, so many places. But there's no place like New Orleans. It's got the best food. It's got the best music. It's got the best people. It's got the most fun stuff to do.

San Jose is made up of the finest citizens of any city in the entire United States- peace loving, quiet, cultured people. ... God-fearing, law-observing, good citizens have been watching these murders increasing and have watched crime increase in this country and from the time this splendid young fellow [Brooke Hart] was murdered this vigilance committee had in mind carrying out what in their minds was real justice...

Civilizations... cannot flourish if they are beset with troublesome infections of mistaken beliefs.

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit.