All Quotes By Tag: Culture

“They say if you don’t know your history, you’re doomed to repeat it. Unfortunately, most Americans can’t even figure out what’s going on in the present.”

“A corollary of this has been that Christians have thought that they should only create art with a Pollyanna quality to it: paintings of birds and kittens, movies that extol family life and end happily, songs that are positive and uplifting – in short, works of art that show a world that is almost unfallen where no one experiences conflict and where sin is naughty rather than wicked.”

“[Photography] allows me to accede to an infra-knowledge; it supplies me with a collection of partial objects and can flatter a certain fetishism of mine: for this ‘me’ which like knowledge, which nourishes a kind of amorous preference for it. In the same way, I like certain biographical features which, in a writer’s life, delight me as much as certain photographs; I have called these features ‘biographemes’; Photography has the same relation to History that the biographeme has to biography.”

“Many modern artists, philosophers, and theologians reject the knowledge of the past. Thus they must continually start over again from ground zero, their vision restricted to their own narrow perspectives, making themselves artificially primitive.”

“The fear of death is why we build cathedrals, have children, declare war, and watch cat videos online at three a.m.”

“In Sri Lanka curiosity was not a trait encouraged among children, particularly in girls, because those in power- often males, but anyone older, or of higher caste, education or influence- were always right and their reasons needn’t be explained or understood to the subordinate.”

“As goes the family, so goes the faith; as goes the faith, so goes the culture.”

“Yoga is the art work of awareness on the canvas of body, mind, and soul.”

“When individuals and communities do not govern self, they risk being ruled by external forces that care less about the well-being of the village.”

“The first step – especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money – the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.”

“The great works of culture have it in their power to clear mental confusion, they give us words for things we had felt but had not previously grasped; they replace cliché with insight.”

“I believe a writer is…the scribe-griot of his/her nation. S/he has the power to incite, ignite, excite, pacify, edify, motivate and eliminate others with the slash of a pen, click of a mouse or swipe of a finger. Though coloured by time, class, age, geography, childhood and other factors, a writer crystallises a slice of his/her society’s culture, mores and its dark and light truths. A writer makes everything real.”

“Everybody is a story. When I was a child, people sat around kitchen tables and told their stories. We don’t do that so much anymore. Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time. It is the way the wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us to live a life worth remembering.”

“Empathy nurtures wisdom. Apathy cultivates ignorance.”

“Quiet people always know more than they seem. Although very normal, their inner world is by default fronted mysterious and therefore assumed weird. Never underestimate the social awareness and sense of reality in a quiet person; they are some of the most observant, absorbent persons of all.”