The path to acquiring strong cross-cultural skills is not always an easy one. We need:

• To recognize our own personal barriers and face the cultural baggage we carry with us.
• Experience and to gain exposure to different cultures.

And for both of these things we need to be in the right personal place to get the most out of this experience and it takes time. Sometimes a litte push in the right direction can help us move forward. This can happen when we come across a quote that resonates well with where we are on our cultural journey at a given time.

This is a collection of quotes that resonated with me at some point on my journey. These quotes made it easier to understand things or see things differently and move beyond cultural hurdles.

These quotes may resonate with different frequencies at different times. This is why I like keeping this list, to come back and read through them after new experiences when I might be ready to accept things at a different level.

Quotes On Culture

A quick word about the word “culture” itself. I’ve lived in France now for a very long time and French people have a unique definition for the word “culture”. Many of the French people of a certain age I encounter believe they are the sole society on earth able to consider themselves “with culture”. This is not my definition of the word. I focus purely on learning more about different cultures and find it fascinating to see the degree of richness in culture there actually is.

1. A culture is made – - or destroyed – - by its articulate voices – Ayn Rand
2. A culture of discipline is not a principle of business; it is a principle of greatness – Jim Collins
3. A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture – Samuel Butler
4. Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest – Mark Twain
5. Any communication or marketing professional needs cross- cultural research & communication skills to be able to succeed in the future – Marye Tharp
6. As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without cultivation, so the mind without culture can never produce good fruit – Seneca
7. Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. – Oscar Wilde
8. By suppressing differences and peculiarities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death – Octavio Paz
9. Communication is depositing a part of yourself in another person
10. Culture is a framework in which we communicate – Stephen Roberts
11. 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
12. Culture is an instrument wielded by professors to manufacture professors, who when their turn comes will manufacture professor – Simone Weil
13. Culture is both an intellectual phenomenon and a moral one – Matthew Arnold
14. 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
15. Culture is like wealth; it makes us more ourselves, it enables us to express ourselves – Philip Gilbert Hamerton
16. Culture is one thing and varnish is another – Ralph Waldo Emerson
17. Culture is roughly anything we do and the monkeys don’t – Lord Raglan
18. Culture is the arts elevated to a set of beliefs – Thomas Wolfe
19. Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why – Henry van Dyke
20. 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
21. Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit – Jawaharlal Nehru
22. Culture is to know the best that has been said and thought in the world – Matthew Arnold
23. Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart – Mahatma Gandhi
24. Culture: the cry of men in face of their destiny – Albert Camus
25. Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have traveled – Mohammed
26. 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
27. Every man’s ability may be strengthened or increased by culture – John Abbott
28. Every view of the world that becomes extinct, every culture that disappears, diminishes a possibility of life – Octavio Paz
29. 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
30. 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
31. Great culture is often betokened by great simplicity – Dorothee DeLuzy
32. Greece appears to be the fountain of knowledge; Rome of elegance – Samuel Johnson
33. History is an account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools – Ambrose Bierce
34. 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
35. I bet one legend that keeps recurring throughout history, in every culture, is the story of Popeye – Jack Handey
36. 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
37. I think that New York is not the cultural centre of America, but the business and administrative centre of American culture – Saul Bellow
38. 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
39. 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
40. 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
41. Landscape shapes culture – Terry Tempest Williams
42. 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
43. Men of culture are the true apostles of equality – Matthew Arnold
44. No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive – Mahatma Gandhi
45. 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
46. Partial culture runs to the ornate; extreme culture to simplicity – Christian Nestell Bovee
47. Preservation of one’s own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures – Cesar Chavez
48. Rastafari not a culture, it’s a reality – Bob Marley
49. That is true culture which helps us to work for the social betterment of all – Henry Ward Beeche
50. That was the peak. I just knew it was modern, not traditional culture. I could be cool – Li Pang
51. 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
52. The end of culture is right living – W. Somerset Maugham
53. The ideal of a single civilization for everyone, implicit in the cult of progress and technique, impoverishes and mutilates us – Octavio Paz
54. 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
55. The Law of Raspberry Jam: the wider any culture is spread, the thinner it gets – Alvin Toffler
56. The manner of their living is very barbarous, because they do not eat at fixed times, but as often as they please – Amerigo Vespucci
57. The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes. – Marcel Proust
58. 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
59. The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards – Walter Bagehot
60. Two half-truths do not make a truth, and two half- cultures do not make a culture – Arthur Koestler
61. 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
62. Whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver – Hermann Goering
63. 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
64. Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands? – Ernest Gaines
65. You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them – Ray Bradbury
66. You must be the change you wish to see in the world – Mohandas Gandhi

Quotes On Business

My interest in culture lies within the realm of international business.

1. All lasting business is built on friendship – Alfred A. Montapert
2. Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black. – Henry Ford
3. Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress. – Alfred A. Montapert
4. 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
5. If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake. – Frank Wilczek
6. 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
7. In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. – Dwight D. Eisenhower
8. 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
9. No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit – Andrew Carnegie
10. People don’t buy from clowns – Claude C. Hopkins
11. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic – Dave Barry
12. 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
13. Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. – Winston Churchill
14. Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see. – Arthur Schopenhauer
15. We listened to what our customers wanted and acted on what they said. Good things happen when you pay attention - John F. Smith

Quotes On Communication

People with strong communication skills usually have an easier time acquiring strong cross-cultural skills.

1. A different language is a different vision of life – Frederico Fellini
2. Examine what is said, not who speaks – Arabian Proverb
3. Good communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed sentences…..Simple and clear go a long way – John Kotter
4. 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
5. 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
6. If you speak to a man in a language he understands, you speak to his head. If you speak to a man in his own language, you speak to his heart. – Nelson Mandela
7. 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
8. Men and women belong to different species and communications between them is still in its infancy – Bill Cosby
9. Men build too many walls and not enough bridges – Isaac Newton
10. Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference. – Mark Twain
11. No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously – Dave Barry
12. 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
13. The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization – Sigmund Freud
14. The person who says something is impossible should not interrupt the person who is doing it – Chinese proverb
15. The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. – William Arthur Ward
16. The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. – George Bernard Shaw
17. To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world -Tony Robbins
18. When all other means of communication fail, try words

Quotes On Mindset

Mindset plays an important role in developing strong cultural skills.

1. A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging prejudices – William James
2. Change your thoughts and you change your world. – Norman Vincent Peale
3. Discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most. – Unknown Author
4. Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment. – Barry LePatner
5. I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific. – Lily Tomlin
6. I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. – Bill Cosby
7. I have never let my schooling interfere with my education – Mark Twain
8. I hear: I forget / I see: I remember / I do: I understand – Chinese Proverb
9. I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education. – Wilson Mizner
10. 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
11. If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied – Rudyard Kipling
12. If I only had a little humility, I’d be perfect. – Ted Turner
13. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. – Albert Einstein
14. It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. – Harry Truman
15. 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
16. It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer. – Albert Einstein
17. Life is plurality, death is uniformity – Octavio Paz
18. Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. – Albert Einstein
19. Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. – Susan Erz
20. Minds are like parachutes — they function best when they are open – Unknown author
21. My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. – Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.
22. Never, never, never, never give up –  Winston Churchill
23. The art of becoming wise is the art of knowing what to overlook – William James
24. The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. – Mark Twain
25. The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving – Oliver Wendell Holmes
26. The greatest inspiration is often born of desperation – Comer Cotrell
27. The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge. – Daniel J. Boorstin
28. The old Irish when immersing a babe at baptism left out the right arm so that it would remain pagan for good fighting.
29. 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
30. The sign on the door of opportunity reads PUSH.
31. The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way – Dale Carnegie
32. 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
33. The very best thing you can do for the whole world is to make the most of yourself. – Wallace Wattles
34. There is a great difference between worry and concern. A worried person sees a problem, and a concerned person solves a problem. – Harold Stephens
35. There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have. – Don Herold
36. 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
37. Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week. – Spanish Proverb
38. Those are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others. – Groucho Marx
39. To see what is in front of one’s nose requires a constant struggle –  George Orwell
40. We are what we believe we are – C.S. Lewis
41. We cannot swing up on a rope that is attached only to our own belt –  William Ernest Hocking
42. While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior. – Henry C. Link

Quotes About Questions

With a healthy dose of curiosity and the ability to ask the right questions you can greatly improve your cultural skills.

1. A pair of good ears will drain dry a hundred tongues – Ben Franklin
2. A prudent question is one half of wisdom – Sir Francis Bacon
3. A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open – Sir Francis Bacon
4. A wise man doesn’t give the right answers, he poses the right questions – Claude Levi-Strauss
5. Ask, and it shall be given to you – Bible, Matthew 7:7
6. Beware of the man who knows the answer before he understands the question - Author unknown
7. Business people ask the wrong questions all the time – Jack Foster
8. Did you hear that? I didn’t hear anything. Put that question another way. – Ernie Banks
9. Don’t be afraid to ask “dumb” questions – Carl Sagan
10. Good questions outrank easy answers – Paul A Samuelson
11. He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever – Chinese proverb
12. Inquiring minds what to know – National Inquirer ad
13. It’s not the answer that enlightens, but the question – Eugene Ionesco
14. Know how to ask. There is nothing more difficult for some people, nor for others easier – Baltasar Gracian
15. No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious – George Bernard Shaw
16. One’s first step in wisdom is to question everything – and one’s last step is to come to terms with everything – Georg Christoph
17. Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything. – Ernest Gaines
18. The important thing is to now stop questioning – Albert Einstein
19. The key to wisdom is knowing all the right questions – John A Simon Jr
20. The power to question is the basis of all human progress – Indira Gandhi
21. There are two sides to every question – Protagoras
22. To get thine ends, lay bashfulness aside: who fears to ask, doth teach to be deny’d - Thomas Herrick
23. To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind – Anne Rice
24. Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow – Ralph Waldo Emerson
25. We need to ask the right questions to reveal the answers – Jonas Salk
26. What concerns me is not the way things are, but the way people think things are – Epictetus
27. You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions – Naquib Mahfouz

Now it’s your turn!

There are many quotes out there. Which ones resonate with you with regards to developing cultural skills? Please leave your quotes in the comments below.