Tradition is the illusion of permanence.

Before I became a film major, I was very heavily into social science, I had done a lot of sociology, anthropology, and I was playing in what I call social psychology, which is sort of an offshoot of anthropology/sociology – looking at a culture as a living organism, why it does what it does.

I truly believe the things Notre Dame stands for.

There is precious little in civilization to appeal to a Yeti.

The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.

Cultures, for better or worse, are very stable.

It is hard to be an individual in Japan.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

I suppose for me as an artist it wasn’t always just about expressing my work; I really wanted, more than anything else, to contribute in some way to the culture that I was living in. It just seemed like a challenge to move it a little bit towards the way I thought it might be interesting to go.

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence.

I’m not a reality-TV kind of guy. But it’s almost like we’re living in a reality show. Every day in this country, everybody keeps worrying about the deterioration of America, and it’s like a big reality show.

When good Americans die they go to Paris.

The United States is definitely ahead in culture of innovation. If someone wants to accomplish great things, there is no better place than the U.S.

When you’re born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front row seat.

America is just downright mean.

My grandmother took me to church on Sunday all day long, every Sunday into the night. Then Monday evening was the missionary meeting. Tuesday evening was usher board meeting. Wednesday evening was prayer meeting. Thursday evening was visit the sick. Friday evening was choir practice. I mean, and at all those gatherings, we sang.

The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I’m doin‘ now, man, for more years than I know. I got it from them.

India does not need to become anything else. India must become only India. This is a country that once upon a time was called the golden bird.

A good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in not out.

The intensity of the football and how the people live football in Liverpool – it is not a usual.

As I got older, my pops tried to keep me involved with the culture by telling me the stories of the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, how he came to America, and about our family back home, because all that side of my family – my aunties, grandparents – is in Africa.

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.

Polygamy: An endeavour to get more out of life than there is in it.

I don’t think culture is something you can describe.

When I arrived in Laos and found young Americans living there, out of free choice, I was surprised. After only a week, I began to have a sense of the appeal of the country and its people – along with despair about its future.

There can never be any stop to learn about different cultures by travelling to different places. And whatever comes your way, continue the healthy eating habits.

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.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

Get off your horse and drink your milk.

Football fans share a universal language that cuts across many cultures and many personality types. A serious football fan is never alone. We are legion, and football is often the only thing we have in common.

According to Ethiopian custom, parents wait to name a baby because children often die in the first weeks of life.

You’re never going to kill storytelling, because it’s built into the human plan. We come with it.

If your culture doesn’t like geeks, you are in real trouble.

I don’t have space to enter into the examples or the history of this, so I’m left with having to make the bold statement that culture is extinct.

Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.

I’ve come to the conclusion that mythology is really a form of archaeological psychology. Mythology gives you a sense of what a people believes, what they fear.

Some believe all that parents, tutors, and kindred believe. They take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them.

People may think I’m trying something new by telling stories, but they’re just jokes connected to give the illusion of stories. But really, I just continue using my imagination and creating. That’s what I do.

Dancing was always part of my culture growing up in Barbados. When I shot my 1st video I worked really hard with my choreographer to perfect the routines.

It’s important to love in hip hop.

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t spend a whole lot of time following soccer. But as I have traveled around the world to better understand global development and health, I’ve learned that soccer is truly universal. No matter where I go, that’s what kids are playing. That’s what people are talking about.

There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate, upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

There is a level of snobbery and fickleness in L.A.

I don’t travel with them, but they can’t be missing in my home. There have to always be dominoes… I used to play with my family – dad, my grandpa, my uncles.

Like every other good thing in this world, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however, it is not the leisured and the cultured who have to pay.

Obscenity comes from grime.

The myths underlying our culture and underlying our common sense have not taught us to feel identical with the universe, but only parts of it, only in it, only confronting it – aliens.

Pop music will never be low brow.

There are plenty of people who are, I think, completely racist who love hip-hop.

The ideal death, I think, is what was the ideal Victorian death, you know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.

We live in a culture that relishes tearing others down. It’s ultimately more fulfilling, though, to help people reach their goals. Instead of feeling jealous, remember: If God did it for them, He can do it for you.

Fishing is much more than fish. It is the great occasion when we may return to the fine simplicity of our forefathers.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

In the West, as well as some other parts of the world, the personal sense of ego tends to predominate, whereas in other areas, there is a more collective sense of ego. This collective ego emphasizes the ‚we‘ rather than the ‚I.‘

Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart.

The equal right of all citizens to health, education, work, food, security, culture, science, and wellbeing – that is, the same rights we proclaimed when we began our struggle, in addition to those which emerge from our dreams of justice and equality for all inhabitants of our world – is what I wish for all.

It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.