If you see in any given situation only what everybody else can see, you can be said to be so much a representative of your culture that you are a victim of it.
—S. I. Hayakawa (1906–92) Canadian-born American Academic, Elected Rep, Politician
Partial culture runs to the ornate, extreme culture to simplicity.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
Great culture is often betokened by great simplicity.
—Dorothee Luzy Dotinville (1747–1830) French Dancer, Actress
Culture is to know the best that has been said and thought in the world.
—Matthew Arnold (1822–88) English Poet, Critic
Men are not suffering from the lack of good literature, good art, good theatre, good music, but from that which has made it impossible for these to become manifest. In short, they are suffering from the silent shameful conspiracy (the more shameful since it is unacknowledged) which has bound them together as enemies of art and artists.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
Men of culture are the true apostles of equality.
—Matthew Arnold (1822–88) English Poet, Critic
No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
The end of culture is right living.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
Here in the U.S., culture is not that delicious panacea which we Europeans consume in a sacramental mental space and which has its own special columns in the newspapers—and in people’s minds. Culture is space, speed, cinema, technology. This culture is authentic, if anything can be said to be authentic.
—Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French Sociologist, Philosopher
In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
Our culture has become something that is completely and utterly in love with its parent. It’s become a notion of boredom that is bought and sold, where nothing will happen except that people will become more and more terrified of tomorrow, because the new continues to look old, and the old will always look cute.
—Malcolm Mclaren (1946–2010) British Impresario, Musician
The foundation of culture, as of character, is at last the moral sentiment.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Culture is an instrument wielded by teachers to manufacture teachers, who, in their turn, will manufacture still more teachers.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
If everybody is looking for it, then nobody is finding it. If we were cultured, we would not be conscious of lacking culture. We would regard it as something natural and would not make so much fuss about it. And if we knew the real value of this word we would be cultured enough not to give it so much importance.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
High culture is nothing but a child of that European perversion called history, the obsession we have with going forward, with considering the sequence of generations a relay race in which everyone surpasses his predecessor, only to be surpassed by his successor. Without this relay race called history there would be no European art and what characterizes it: a longing for originality, a longing for change. Robespierre, Napoleon, Beethoven, Stalin, Picasso, they’re all runners in the relay race, they all belong to the same stadium.
—Milan Kundera (b.1929) Czech Novelist
Culture, with us, ends in headache
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Publicity is the life of this culture, in so far as without publicity capitalism could not survive, and at the same time publicity is its dream.
—John Berger (1926–2017) English Art Critic, Novelist
Culture is both an intellectual phenomenon and a moral one.
—Matthew Arnold (1822–88) English Poet, Critic
As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without cultivation, so the mind without culture can never produce good fruit.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
For corporations to be bedfellows with the arts is good business for both. The architecture that houses a company is a more visible statement than the president’s in the annual report. Ditto interiors, particularly of offices and sometimes, dramatically, in plants. For solvent businesses, support of community cultural undertakings in music, drama, dance creates great goodwill. Also, the existence of such activities is often important to the executives and their families that companies want to keep or attract to keep.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
Culture, far from giving us freedom, only develops, as it advances, new necessities; the fetters of the physical close more tightly around us, so that the fear of loss quenches even the ardent impulse toward improvement, and the maxims of passive obedience are held to be the highest wisdom of life.
—Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German Poet, Dramatist
Preservation of one’s own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.
—Cesar Chavez (1927–93) American Labor Leader
Culture is properly described as the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection.
—Matthew Arnold (1822–88) English Poet, Critic
Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.
—Matthew Arnold (1822–88) English Poet, Critic
Culture is on the horns of this dilemma: if profound and noble it must remain rare, if common it must become mean
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
Our attitude toward our own culture has recently been characterized by two qualities, braggadocio and petulance. Braggadocio—empty boasting of American power, American virtue, American know-how—has dominated our foreign relations now for some decades. Here at home—within the family, so to speak—our attitude to our culture expresses a superficially different spirit, the spirit of petulance. Never before, perhaps, has a culture been so fragmented into groups, each full of its own virtue, each annoyed and irritated at the others.
—Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American Historian, Academic, Attorney, Writer
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.
—Karl Marx (1818–1883) German Philosopher, Economist
As the end of the century approaches, all our culture is like the culture of flies at the beginning of winter. Having lost their agility, dreamy and demented, they turn slowly about the window in the first icy mists of morning. They give themselves a last wash and brush-up, their oscillated eyes roll, and they fall down the curtains.
—Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French Sociologist, Philosopher
That is true culture which helps us to work for the social betterment of all.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting the progress of the arts and the sciences and a flourishing culture in our land.
—Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chinese Statesman