Quotes About Culture

There was a time when a book could be sold purely because its author had been to distant climes and had returned to tell of the exotic sights he had seen. That author was Marco Polo, and the time was the thirteenth century.

There is a dialectic between common humanity and particular ways of being human.

I bet he's hightailed it into Canada. Somewhere into Canada." "Let me put it this way. Basically, there's Canada and there's the United States of America, and Orkney, since he was a boy, never had one spark of interest in going to the latter.

Hiring people is an art, not a science, and resumes can't tell you whether someone will fit into a company's culture.

I can be a bit romantic about history, but I'm also pragmatic about the present. America cannot, of course, have open borders. We need a clear, sustainable immigration policy, one that better manages the flow of people who do not pose a threat and can contribute to our economy and culture. Immigration laws can be sensible without extinguishing the idea that brought so many here and compels so many to stay.

The point of a coffee store was not just to teach customers about fine coffee but to show them how to enjoy it.

Starbucks has always been about so much more than coffee. But without great coffee, we have no reason to exist.

It is not the fault of the baristas working behind the counter. It is the responsibility of the leadership team to keep our culture alive, growing and thriving.

How leaders embody the values they espouse sets a tone, an expectation, that guides their employees' behaviors.

As I lean back in my chair, it seems like only yesterday as I think back to the mid-'80s, a time of mullets, Jordache jeans and skinny ties.

Under the general plan of nonresistance one may take the position of imitation. The aim of such an attitude is to assimilate the culture and the social behavior-pattern of the dominant group. It is the profound capitulation to the powerful, because it means the yielding of oneself to that which, deep within, one recognizes as being unworthy. It makes for a strategic loss of self-respect.

The English imposed their language on Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and they weren't terribly nice about it.

Wherever it's spoken, Gaelic sounds like a combination of Swedish and Hebrew.

In the long run, the oppressor is also a victim. In the short run (and so far, human history has consisted only of short runs), the victims, themselves desperate and tainted with the culture that oppresses them, turn on other victims.

The overall strength of Chinese culture and its international influence is not commensurate with China's international status. The international culture of the West is strong while we are weak.

After learning the language and culture of the Chinese people, these Jesuits began to establish contacts with the young intellectuals of the country.

Life and human society are the chief concern of Confucianism and, through it, the chief concern of the Chinese people.

What is sacred among one people may be ridiculous in another and what is despised or rejected by one cultural group, may in a different environment become the cornerstone for a great edifice of strange grandeur and beauty.

Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity -- an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven.

they were slowly learning English, not to the superseding of the native tongue but to the supplementing of it, bilingualism being the proper present goal of the Yukon Indians.

It is very easy to misunderstand a strange people, and very hard to understand them thoroughly.

All the hipsters with cars, clothes, and money had rejected the family relationship that I valued so highly.

Reading was closely connected with eating; it was food for the soul. As food nourished physical life, reading nourished prayer. Hence, public reading during meals is a very ancient monastic custom. The reading that the members of a community heard in common, at meals and at other times, helped give them their unique culture.

In the last couple of weeks I have seen the ads for the Wonder Bra. Is that really a problem in this country? Men not paying enough attention to women's breasts?