Culture Quotes

Useful Resources

Some of these quotes can be a simple way to stimulate your cultural skills… especially when read at the right moment in time.

A culture is made – - or destroyed – - by its articulate voices – Ayn Rand

A culture of discipline is not a principle of business; it is a principle of greatness – Jim Collins

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging prejudices – William James

A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture – Samuel Butler

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest – Mark Twain

Any communication or marketing professional needs cross- cultural research & comm. skills to be able to succeed in the future – Marye Tharp

Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black – Henry Ford

As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without cultivation, so the mind without culture can never produce good fruit – Seneca

As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without culture, so the mind, without cultivation, can never produce good fruit – Seneca

By suppressing differences and peculiarities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death – Octavio Paz

Change your thoughts and you change your world – Norman Vincent Peale

Communication is depositing a part of yourself in another person

Culture is a framework in which we communicate – Stephen Roberts

Culture is a little like dropping an Alka- Seltzer into a glass- you don’t see it, but somehow it does something – Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Culture is an instrument wielded by professors to manufacture professors, who when their turn comes will manufacture professor – Simone Weil

Culture is both an intellectual phenomenon and a moral one – Matthew Arnold

Culture is but the fine flowering of real education, and it is the training of the feeling the tastes and the manners that makes it so – Minnie Kellogg

Culture is like wealth; it makes us more ourselves, it enables us to express ourselves – Philip Gilbert Hamerton

Culture is one thing and varnish is another – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Culture is the arts elevated to a set of beliefs – Thomas Wolfe

Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why – Henry van Dyke

Culture is the sum of all the forms of art, of love, and of thought, which, in the coarse or centuries, have enabled man to be less enslaved – Andre Malraux

Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit – Jawaharlal Nehru

Culture is to know the best that has been said and thought in the world – Matthew Arnold

Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart – Mahatma Gandhi

Culture: the cry of men in face of their destiny – Albert Camus

Every age, every culture, every custom and tradition has its own character, its own weakness and its own strength, its beauties and cruelties; it accepts certain sufferings as matters of course, puts up patiently with certain evils. Human life is reduced to real suffering, to hell, only when two ages, two cultures and religions overlap – Hermann Hesse

Every man’s ability may be strengthened or increased by culture – John Abbott

Every view of the world that becomes extinct, every culture that disappears, diminishes a possibility of life – Octavio Paz

Examine what is said, not who speaks – Arabian Proverb

Five frogs are sitting on a log. Four decide to jump off. How many are left? Answer: five. Why? Because there’s a difference between deciding and doing – Mark L. Feldman & Michael F. Spratt

France, and the whole of Europe have a great culture and an amazing history. Most important thing though is that people there know how to live! In America they’ve forgotten all about it. I’m afraid that the American culture is a disaster – Johnny Depp

Good communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed sentences…..Simple and clear go a long way – John Kotter

Great culture is often betokened by great simplicity – Dorothee DeLuzy

Greece appears to be the fountain of knowledge; Rome of elegance – Samuel Johnson

Hiring people is an art, not a science, and resumes can’t tell you whether someone will fit into a company’s culture. When you realize you have made a mistake, you need to cut your losses and move on – Howard Schultz

History is an account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools – Ambrose Bierce

I bet one legend that keeps recurring throughout history, in every culture, is the story of Popeye – Jack Handey

I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any – Mahatma Gandhi

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education – Mark Twain

I think selling techniques are basically the same in every country, except there are different cultures that have different methods of negotiating. But real estate is the same, whether it happens to be in Australia or if it happens to be in New York – George Ross

I think that New York is not the cultural centre of America, but the business and administrative centre of American culture – Saul Bellow

I think that one possible definition of our modern culture is that it is one in which nine- tenths of our intellectuals can’t read any poetry – Randall Jarrell

If A is a success in life, them A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut – Albert Einstein

If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied – Rudyard Kipling

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him – John Fitzgerald Kennedy

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings – Dave Barry

In some South Pacific cultures, a speaker holds a conch shell as a symbol of temporary position of authority. Leaders must understand who holds the conch that is, who should be listened to and when – Max De Pree

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

It is very rare to find ground which produces nothing; if it is not covered with flowers, with fruit trees and grains, it produces briers and pines. It is the same with man; if he is not virtuous, he becomes vicious – Jean de la Bruyere

Landscape shapes culture – Terry Tempest Williams

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

Life is plurality, death is uniformity – Octavio Paz

Men and women belong to different species and communications between them is still in its infancy – Bill Cosby

Men of culture are the true apostles of equality – Matthew Arnold

Never, never, never, never give up – Winston Churchill

No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive – Mahatma Gandhi

No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously – Dave Barry

No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit – Andrew Carnegie

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 – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern life – - its material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness – - conjoin to dull our sensory faculties – Susan Sontag

Partial culture runs to the ornate; extreme culture to simplicity – Christian Nestell Bovee

People don’t buy from clowns – Claude C. Hopkins

Preservation of one’s own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures – Cesar Chavez

Rastafari not a culture, it’s a reality – Bob Marley

Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic – Dave Barry

That is true culture which helps us to work for the social betterment of all – Henry Ward Beeche

That was the peak. I just knew it was modern, not traditional culture. I could be cool – Li Pang

The art of becoming wise is the art of knowing what to overlook – William James

The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor – Henry David Thoreau

The end of culture is right living – W. Somerset Maugham

The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization – Sigmund Freud

The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving – Oliver Wendell Holmes

The greatest inspiration is often born of desperation – Comer Cotrell

The ideal of a single civilization for everyone, implicit in the cult of progress and technique, impoverishes and mutilates us – Octavio Paz

The key to community is the acceptance, in fact the celebration of our individual and cultural differences. It is also the key to world peace – M. Scott Peck

The Law of Raspberry Jam: the wider any culture is spread, the thinner it gets – Alvin Toffler

The manner of their living is very barbarous, because they do not eat at fixed times, but as often as they please – Amerigo Vespucci

The old Irish when immersing a babe at baptism left out the right arm so that it would remain pagan for good fighting

The sign on the door of opportunity reads PUSH.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. – George Bernard Shaw

The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way – Dale Carnegie

The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards – Walter Bagehot

There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something…. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after - J.R.R. Tolkien

To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world -Tony Robbins

To see what is in front of one’s nose requires a constant struggle – George Orwell

Two half-truths do not make a truth, and two half- cultures do not make a culture – Arthur Koestler

We cannot swing up on a rope that is attached only to our own belt – William Ernest Hocking

We listened to what our customers wanted and acted on what they said. Good things happen when you pay attention – John F. Smith

What multiculturalism boils down to is that you can praise any culture in the world except Western culture – and you cannot blame any culture in the world except Western culture – Thomas Sowell

When all other means of communication fail, try words

Whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver – Hermann Goering

Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands? – Ernest Gaines

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

You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them – Ray Bradbury

Culture is roughly anything we do and the monkeys don’t – Lord Raglan

Internationalization is like creating a round-toed shoe that fits people with all types of feet. It is not as comfortable as a perfectly fitted shoe and doesn’t fit snugly, but can be worn by many people – David Debry

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes. – Marcel Proust

Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have traveled – Mohammed

Men build too many walls and not enough bridges – Isaac Newton

We are what we believe we are – C.S. Lewis

The person who says something is impossible should not interrupt the person who is doing it – Chinese proverb

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently – Friedrich Nietzsche

You must be the change you wish to see in the world – Mohandas Gandhi

How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to its young? – Paul Sweeney

All lasting business is built on friendship – Alfred A. Montapert

Minds are like parachutes — they function best when they are open – Unknown author

While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior. – Henry C. Link

If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it. – Anais Nin

It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer. – Albert Einstein

I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education. – Wilson Mizner

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge. – Daniel J. Boorstin

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. – William Arthur Ward

If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake. – Frank Wilczek

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. – Albert Einstein

Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress. – Alfred A. Montapert

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. – Bill Cosby

Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week. – Spanish Proverb

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. – Oscar Wilde

There is a great difference between worry and concern. A worried person sees a problem, and a concerned person solves a problem. – Harold Stephens

I hear: I forget / I see: I remember / I do: I understand – Chinese Proverb

Discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most. – Unknown Author

The very best thing you can do for the whole world is to make the most of yourself. – Wallace Wattles

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment. – Barry LePatner

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. – Winston Churchill

Those are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others. – Groucho Marx

If I only had a little humility, I’d be perfect. – Ted Turner

I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific. – Lily Tomlin

Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. – Susan Erz

There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have. – Don Herold

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. – George Bernard Shaw

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. – Mark Twain

Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference. – Mark Twain

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. – Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior. – Dee Hock

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. – Albert Einstein

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. – Niels Bohr

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see. – Arthur Schopenhauer

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. – Harry Truman

Please let me know if you have any other quotes to add to this list.