Quotes about Culture

We wish to learn all the curious, outlandish ways of all the different countries, so that we can show off and astonish people when we get home. We wish to excite the envy of our untraveled friends with our strange foreign fashions which we can't shake off.

When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it's always 20 years behind the times.

There is no such thing as the Queen's English. The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares!

A Russian imbues his polite things with a heartiness, both of phrase and expression, that compels belief in their sincerity.

Two or three centuries from now it will be recognized that all the competent killers are Christians; then the pagan world will go to school to the Christian—not to acquire his religion, but his guns. The Turk and the Chinaman will buy those to kill missionaries and converts with.

The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children and slaves in the West at the period of this story—that is to say, thirty or forty years ago.

There is no such thing as the Queen's English. The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares!

All men will confess that without Christian civilization war must have remained a poor and trifling thing to the end of time.

I have caught a glimpse of the faces of several Moorish women (for they are only human, and will expose their faces for the admiration of a Christian dog when no male Moor is by), and I am full of veneration for the wisdom that leads them to cover up such atrocious ugliness.

India is, the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grandmother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured ... in India only.

At the time I would have endorsed the radical notions of R. D. Laing that insanity was a sane reaction to an insane society. Leaving the insane society to set up an independent self-sufficient commune seemed like a very sensible noble brave thing to do—plus it figured to be good for my mental health. Had I gone crazy in Boston or New York I would have blamed my culture and society without a second thought. The arguments were all packed, polished, and ready to fly.

Are you well up in your Jean Paul?