Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.
—Rita Mae Brown (b.1944) American Writer, Feminist
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
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
One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit.
—Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian Head of State
The foundation of culture, as of character, is at last the moral sentiment.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.
—Samuel Butler
Culture is properly described as the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection.
—Matthew Arnold (1822–88) English Poet, Critic
A culture is made—or destroyed—by its articulate voices.
—Ayn Rand (1905–82) Russian-born American Novelist, Philosopher
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
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
It is the mark of the cultured man that he is aware of the fact that equality is an ethical and not a biological principle
—Ashley Montagu (1905–1999) British-American Anthropologist
Great culture is often betokened by great simplicity.
—Dorothee Luzy Dotinville (1747–1830) French Dancer, Actress
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
Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why.
—Henry van Dyke Jr. (1852–1933) American Author, Educator, Clergyman
Men of culture are the true apostles of equality.
—Matthew Arnold (1822–88) English Poet, Critic
Culture is both an intellectual phenomenon and a moral one.
—Matthew Arnold (1822–88) English Poet, Critic
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
Preservation of one’s own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.
—Cesar Chavez (1927–93) American Labor Leader
Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
Every view of the world that becomes extinct, every culture that disappears, diminishes a possibility of life.
—Octavio Paz (1914–98) Mexican Poet, Diplomat
Culture, with us, ends in headache
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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
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 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
A faith in culture is as bad as a faith in religion; both expressions imply a turning away from those very things which culture and religion are about. Culture as a collective name for certain very valuable activities is a permissible word; but culture hypostatized, set up on its own, made into a faith, a cause, a banner, a platform, is unendurable. For none of the activities in question cares a straw for that faith or cause. It is like a return to early Semitic religion where names themselves were regarded as powers.
—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish-born British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
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
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
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
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