Quotes About Culture

i'm off to an island nation where formal wear consists of a leaf tired around a penis.

The I-Kiribati are a remarkably musical people. Everyone sings. There is something arresting about seeing a tough-looking teenage boy suddenly put a flower behind his ear and begin to croon.

But, as I delved into Chinese for Dummies, I couldn't help but conclude that the Chinese language is the Great Wall of languages, a clever linguistic barrier erected to keep outsiders out. What, frankly, is wrong with Esperanto? Or alphabets? What is so deficient about an alphabet that uses a judicious twenty-six letters? We can make lots of words with those twenty-six letters, big words even.

I long for a church that understands the dangers of entertainment and sees it for what is is: a lion crouching at the evangelical door, ready to devour us. We need a culture of evangelism that never sacrifices to the idolatry of entertainment, but serves up the rich fare found the gospel of Christ.

In a culture of evangelism, there is an understanding that everyone is engaged. Have you ever heard someone say, "Evangelism is not my gift," as if that excused him from sharing his faith? That's a kindergarten understanding of evangelism. All Christians are called to share their faith as a point of faithfulness, not gifting (Matt. 28:19).

I yearn for a culture of evangelism that never trades confidence in the gospel for confidence in techniques, personalities, or entertainment gimmicks.

In a culture of evangelism, the goal is for everyone to share, pray, and take opportunities as they come. We can challenge people to come to faith, but there are no instructions in the New Testament for a sinner's prayer. We trust God to bring sinners to repentance. Our responsibility is to be faithful witnesses—together.

The employer generally gets the employees he deserves.

The conformist is not born. He is made. I believe the brainwashing process begins in the schools and colleges.

there is for many a poverty of play and cultural life because, although the person had a place for erudition, there was a relative failure on the part of those who constitute the child's world of persons to introduce cultural elements at the appropriate phases of the person's personality development.

Visual design proved to be a fifth wonder of life. Buildings, terra-cotta warriors in China, dams, and paintings appeared in stories of awe from around the world.

Stories of life and death, the seventh wonder of life, were common around the world.

My favorite ethnic group is smart.

I think men get nervous when women start counting the number of female senators, and whites become edgy when they hear the next Supreme Court seat will probably go to a Latino. This isn't always because they object to sharing the spoils, by the way; it just reminds us that the melting pot may not be working, and we haven't yet achieved the ambiguous national dream of becoming a nation of indistinguishable beige atheists.

History is often made and buttressed by myths and folklore rather than facts.

Since ancient times, people from throughout Asia have brought to Japan their talents, knowledge and energy, helping to lay the basis for Japan's existence as a country.

My mom would go crazy. I can't read all these sex poems. We're Christian.

The English were infuriating. Everything was designed to put an outsider at a disadvantage. If you had to ask, you didn't belong.

But you must remember that they are Viennese and nobody is good enough for the Viennese.

I think really, China, Chinese, I think they really have a long history of civilization, rich culture.

We are no longer very sophisticated thinkers or very precise thinkers. We deal in moods and emotions, especially in the arts, and we have developed a very loose vocabulary along with our loose thinking.

The disintegration of rational society started in the drift from the hearth and the family," says Chesterton. "The solution must be a drift back.

Poetry is the flower of civilization," said Chesterton in one lecture. "Romanticism has worked itself out in our time in nonsense and dirt. We should remind the humanists that if poetry has become too personal it has also become unpoetic.

Nativism is a movement that promotes favored status for established citizens or residents of a nation over newcomers or immigrants. Nativists typically oppose immigration and support restricting the legal status of specific ethnic groups because they view them as harming the culture of the host nation.