Quotes about Culture

An educated woman is a worthless woman.

They came to know the night skys well. Western eyes that read more geometric constructions than those names given by the ancients.

We none of us knew him to speak [Dutch]. Asked him where he'd learned it you know what he said? What did he say. Said off a Dutchman.

Lemon trees, like Italians, seem to be happiest when they are touching one another

The Italians are called Children of the Sun. They might better be called Children of the Shadow. Their souls are dark and nocturnal.

Give me such shows--give me the streets of Manhattan!

The two ideas, justice and vocation, are inseparable.... It is by way of the principle and practice of vocation that sanctity and reverence enter into the human economy. It was thus possible for traditional cultures to conceive that to work is to pray. (pg. 258, The Idea of a Local Economy)

Wherever men exist, in all ages and in all parts of the world, they have some form of religion. The idea of God is impressed on every human language. And as language is the product and revelation of human consciousness, if all languages have some name for God, it proves that the idea of God, in some from, belongs to every human being.

The Negro is the child of two cultures — Africa and America. The problem is that in the search for wholeness all too many Negroes seek to embrace only one side of their natures.

Your people are a mirror of your attitude. If you have a poor attitude, you can't expect your people to be upbeat.

As a culture, we seem to have an intolerance for suffering; we tend to want those who have experienced a loss of any kind to get on with their lives as quickly as possible. Often, by minimizing the impact of significant losses, pathologizing those whose reactions are intense, and applauding those who seem relatively unaffected by tragic events, we encourage the inhibition of our own grief.

When everything is blocked off,' I was told by a dear friend who lives in Erfurt, "one must try to live in the interstices.' Apparently, the Christians of the Apocalypse, though they did not bear the sign of the beast, had discovered or created such spaces. From islands like these, true culture, Christian culture, may spread across the earth. Many people are athirst for it.