Quotes About Culture And Customs

“Normally leaving one's country is a grave step: it involves leaving the society and culture in which we have been raised,, the society and culture whose language we use in speech and thought to express and understand ourselves, our aims, goals and values; the society and culture, customs, and conventions we depend on to find our place in the social world. In large part, we affirm our society and culture, and have an intimate and inexpressible knowledge of it, even though much of it we may question, if not reject. The government's authority cannot, then be freely accepted in the sense that the bonds of society and culture, of history and social place of origin, begin so early to shape our life and are normally so strong that the right of emigration does not suffice to make accepting its authority free, politically speaking, in the way that liberty of conscience suffices to make accepting ecclesiastical authority free.”

— John Rawls

“WILL'S RULES FOR LIVING #10: WHEN VISITING A FOREIGN LAND, IT IS ALWAYS WISE TO OBSERVE AND ABIDE BY THE CUSTOMS OF THE LOCAL CULTURE. UNLESS THEY'RE TRYING TO EAT YOU.”

— Mark Frost

“Entire industries and some of our very largest professions depend on the persistence of our current system. Other social institutions-like giant publishers and test-prep companies-are synched to its workings. A certain teaching method implies certain goals and certain tests. The tests, in turn, have a serious impact on hiring practices and career advancement. Human nature being what it is, those who prosper under a given system tend to become supporters of that system. Thus the powerful tend to have a bias toward the status quo; our educational customs tend to perpetuate themselves, and because they interconnect with so many other aspects of our culture, they are extraordinarily difficult to change.”

— Salman Khan

“People might feel sorry for a man who's fallen on hard times, but when an entire nation is poor, the rest of the world assumes that all its people must be brainless, lazy, dirty, clumsy fools. Instead of pity, the people provoke laughter. It's all a joke: their culture, their customs, their practices. In time the rest of the world may, some of them, begin to feel ashamed for having thought this way, and when they look around and see immigrants from that poor country mopping their floors and doing all the other lowest paying jobs, naturally they worry about what might happen if these workers one day rose up against them. So, to keep things sweet, they start taking an interest in the immigrants' culture and sometimes even pretend they think of them as equals.”

— Orhan Pamuk

“These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of everyone of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“My works are Chinese literature, which is part of world literature. They show the life of Chinese people as well as the country's unique culture and folk customs.”

— Mo Yan

“If women have influence, it is only-and then only sometimes-within their home. Men control all the political and economic power, the culture and customs; they proclaim the laws and apply them as they wish, and when social pressures and the legal apparatus are not sufficient to subdue the most rebellious women, the Church steps in with its incontestable patriarchal seal. What is unforgivable, though, is that it is women who perpetuate and reinforce the system, continuing to raise arrogant sons and servile daughters. If they would agree to revise the standards, they could end machismo in one generation.”

— Isabel Allende

“Sunset's Passions," he read, and opened the book to a random page to read aloud. "'His hands gently caressed her ivory, silky br- " His eyes widened. "By the Wyrd! Do you actually read this rubbish? What happened to Symbols of Power and Eyllwe Customs and Culture?"
...
"You may borrow it when I'm done. If you read it, your literary experience will be complete. And," she added with a coy smile, "it will give you some creative ideas of things to do with your lady friends.”

— Sarah J. Maas

“I am saying that while popular culture usually portrays practitioners of magic as separate from ordinary people, often biologically different, many people have habits or customs or superstitions that show magic was once a whole lot more democratic.”

— David Liss

“Asiatic youths are flocking to Western colleges for the equipment of modern education. Our insight does not penetrate your culture deeply, but at least we are willing to learn. Some of my compatriots have adopted too much of your customs and too much of your etiquette, in the delusion that the acquisition of stiff collars and tall silk hats comprised the attainment of your civilisation. Pathetic and deplorable as such affectations are, they evince our willingness to approach the West on our knees.”

— Okakura Kakuzō

“There aren't any looks or customs I wish would come back. Today almost anything goes. Culture constantly devours the past so there's not much that's missing.”

— Graydon Carter

“Humans become human through intense learning not just of survival skills but of customs and social mores, kinship and social laws-that is, culture.”

— Richard Leakey

“Human behavior is subject to the same laws as any other natural phenomenon. Our customs, behaviors, and values are byproducts of our culture. No one is born with greed, prejudice, bigotry, patriotism and hatred; these are all learned behavior patterns. If the environment is unaltered, similar behavior will reoccur.”

— Jacque Fresco

“How do cultures differ from one another? Above all, in their customs. Tell me how you dress, how you act, what are your habits, which gods you honor, and I will tell you who you are. Man not only creates culture, he carries it around with him. Man is culture.”

— Ryszard Kapuscinski

“Ethnography literally means 'a portrait of a people.' An ethnography is a written description of a particular culture - the customs, beliefs, and behavior - based on information collected through fieldwork.”

— Marvin Harris

“We see God working in terms of Jewish culture to reach Jews, yet, refusing to impose Jewish customs on Gentiles. Instead non-Jews are to come to God and relate to Him in terms of their own cultural vehicles. We see the Bible endorsing, then, a doctrine we call biblical sociocultural adequacy in which each culture is taken seriously but none advocated exclusively as the only one acceptable to God.”

— Charles H. Kraft

“Our customs, behaviors, and values are byproducts of our culture.”

— Jacque Fresco

“Culture changes, fashions change, customs change. Great music is immortal.”

— Michael Jackson

“For the multiculturist/diversity crowd, culture, ideas, customs, arts and skills are a matter of racial membership where one has no more control over his culture than his race. That's a racist idea, but it's politically correct racism. It says that one's convictions, character and values are not determined by personal judgment and choices but genetically determined. In other words, as yesteryear's racists held: race determines identity.”

— Walter E. Williams

“We [ with Russel Crowe] had an Arabic coach there [ in the Body of Lies] that was really helpful, because it was more so than any accent. You have to be so exact, and there's different dialects of Arabic from country to country so it was really, really difficult to tell you the truth. And one of the hardest things I've ever had to do language-wise, because it comes from the throat. It's different. And also learning about the customs and the culture and all that, so we had advisors for that sort of thing.”

— Leonardo DiCaprio

“The old culture had come out of poverty, out of English customs.”

— Charlie Munger