Culture Quotes

“Those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country, as the behavior of the country is most mockable at the court.”

“Literature is a comprehensive essence of the intellectual life of a nation.”

“If we tire of the saints, Shakspeare is our city of refuge.”

“A nation, like a tree, does not thrive well till it is engraffed with a foreign stock.”

“Shall we then judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely.”

“In the Greek cities, it was reckoned profane, that any person should pretend a property in a work of art, which belonged to all who could behold it.”

“Society has really no graver interest than the well-being of the literary class.”

“Luckily for us, now that steam has narrowed the Atlantic to a strait, the nervous, rocky West is intruding a new and continental element into the national mind, as we shall yet have an American genius.”

“England produces under favorable conditions of ease and culture the finest women in the world. And, as the men are affectionate and true-hearted, the women inspire and refine them.”

“We go to Europe to be Americanized.”

“Most of the classical citations you shall hear or read in the current journals or speeches were not drawn from the originals, but from previous quotations in English books.”

“The secret of culture is to learn, that a few great points steadily reappear, alike in the poverty of the obscurest farm, and in the miscellany of metropolitan life, and that these few are alone to be regarded,--the escape from all false ties; courage to be what we are; and love what is simple and beautiful; independence and cheerful relation, these are the essentials,--these, and the wish to serve,--to add somewhat to the well-being of men.”

“What is the foundation of that interest all men feel in Greek history, letters, art, and poetry, in all its periods, from the Heroic or Homeric age down to the domestic life of the Athenians and Spartans, four or five centuries later? What but this, that every man passes personally through a Grecian period.”

“London is the epitome of our times, and the Rome of to-day.”

“No man can quite emancipate himself from his age and country, or produce a model in which the education, the religion, the politics, usages, and arts, of his times shall have no share.”

“In America and Europe, the nomadism is of trade and curiosity.”

“A cheerful intelligent face is the end of culture, and success enough. For it indicates the purpose of Nature and wisdom attained.”

“Our country, customs, laws, our ambitions, and our notions of fit and fair-all these we never made; we found them ready-made; we but quote from them. What would remain to me if this art of appropriation were derogatory to genius? Every one of my writings has been furnished to me by a thousand different persons, a thousand things; wise and foolish have brought me, without suspecting it, the offering of their thoughts, faculties, and experience. My work is an aggregation of beings taken from the whole of nature. It bears the name of Goethe.”

“Culture implies all which gives the mind possession of its own powers, as languages to the critic, telescope to the astronomer. Culture alters the political status of an individual. It raises a rival royalty in a monarchy. 'Tis king against king. It is ever a romance of history in all dynasties--the co-presence of the revolutionary force in intellect. It creates a personal independence which the monarch cannot look down, and to which he must often succumb.”

“In the highest civilization the book is still the highest delight.”

“The English never draw a line without blurring it.”

“Europe extends to the Alleghenies; America lies beyond.”

“A man is the prisoner of his power. A topical memory makes him an almanac; a talent for debate, disputant; skill to get money makes him a miser, that is, a beggar. Culture reduces these inflammations by invoking the aid of other powers against the dominant talent, and by appealing to the rank of powers. It watches success.”

“We make our buildings, and then our buildings make and shape us.”

“A man should have a farm or a mechanical craft for his culture. We must have a basis for our higher accomplishments, our delicate entertainments of poetry and philosophy, in the work of our hands.”