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Exlpore more Culture quotes
"We are what we think about and meditate on. Look around people! America is a buffet of violence, a total immersion."
"Culture is a symbolic veil with which we hide our animal nature from ourselves - and other animals."
"Cultural heritage define the uniqueness of individuals. Appreciate cultural diversity."
"The way of the consumerist culture is to spend so much energy chasing happiness that it has none left to be happy."
"Confession. Years ago, I was invited to a cocktail party for an Asian-American networking group. As I introduced myself to a Japanese businessman, I reached out and firmly shook his hand. Much to my embarrassment now, I automatically took my other hand and wrapped our hands in a "hand hug. This is a common gesture of friendship in the South. As his wife approached, however, she appeared appalled and felt disrespected that I was touching her husband. Our cultural differences were marked. Despite this cultural mishap, I was able to redeem myself. We all moved past it and delighted in an interesting conversation. Physical touch is a touchy topic (pun intended), especially when various cultures are involved."
"Culture and holiness must be made compatible in the environment of the kingdom."
"The American's literature is all about being hot and sexy, inspiring a girl and going to bed with her. It focuses on being a hero, saving lives and surviving last, but it has nothing to do with dignity, serenity."
"Could dump two Chinee down in one of our maria and they would get rich selling rocks to each other while raising twelve kids. Then a Hindu would sell retail stuff he got from them wholesale--below cost at a fat profit. We got along."
Explore more quotes by Alain de Botton
"If we were entirely sane, if madness did not have a serious grip on one side of us, other people's tragedies would hold a great deal less interest for us."
"For the rest of history, for most of us, our bright promise will always fall short of being actualised; it will never earn us bountiful sums of money or beget exemplary objects or organisations....Most of us stand poised at the edge of brilliance, haunted by the knowledge of our proximity, yet still demonstrably on the wrong side of the line, our dealings with reality undermined by a range of minor yet critical psychological flaws (a little too much optimism, an unprocessed rebelliousness, a fatal impatience or sentimentality). We are like an exquisite high-speed aircraft which for lack of a tiny part is left stranded beside the runway, rendered slower than a tractor or a bicycle."
"The quickest way to stop noticing something, may be to buy it-just as the quickest way to stop appreciating someone may be to marry him or her."
"Humboldt's early biographer, F.A. Schwarzenberg, subtitled his life of Humboldt What May Be Accomplished in a Lifetime. He summarised the areas of his subject's extraordinary curiosity as follows: '1) The knowledge of the Earth and its inhabitants. 2) The discovery of the higher laws of nature, which govern the universe, men, animals, plants, minerals. 3) The discovery of new forms of life. 4) The discovery of territories hitherto but imperfectly known, and their various productions. 5)The acquaintance with new species of the human race--- their manners, their language and the historical traces of their culture.' What may be accomplished in a lifetime---and seldom or never is."
"There is a danger of developing a blanket distaste for modern life which could have its attractions but lack the all-important images to help us identify them."
"It is hope--with regard to our careers, our love lives, our children, our politicians, and our planet--that is primarily to blame for angering and embittering us. The incompatibility between the grandeur of our aspirations and the mean reality of our condition generates the violent disappointments which rack our days and etch themselves in lines of acrimony across our faces."
"To grow interested in any piece of information, we need somewhere to 'put' it, which means some way of connecting it to an issue we already now how to care about."
"And yet, troublingly, there is one difference between 'labour' and other elements [raw materials, machinery] which conventional economics does not have a means to represent, or give weight to, but which is nevertheless unavoidably present in the world: the fact that labour feels pain."
"The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or friendship drives me nuts. I can't accept that."
"The difference between hope and despair is a different way of telling stories from the same facts."
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