Culture

"Remember, Art is the one vital medium of the coming culture."

"Culture is the common heritage of all humanity. Despite differences in customs, creeds, and languages, every act of culture is the possession of all mankind. The unification of the world through culture is the first step toward the transformation of all life."

"It might be said that the basic purpose of any culture is to maintain the ideal status quo. What creates differences among cultures and literatures is the way in which the people go about this task, and this in turn depends on, and simultaneously maintains, basic assumptions about the nature of life and humanity’s place in it. The ideal status quo is generally expressed in terms of peace, prosperity, good health, and stability."

"The cultural bias of the translator inevitably shapes his or her perception of the materials being translated, often in ways that he or she is unaware of. Culture is fundamentally a shaper of perception, after all, and perception is shaped by culture in many subtle ways. In short, it’s hard to see the forest when you’re a tree."

"The whole scope of the essay is to recommend culture as the great help out of our present difficulties; culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world; and through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits."

"Culture is then properly described not as having its origin in curiosity, but as having its origin in the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection."

"In 16th-century Italy there lived Lodovico Gonzaga, a 16-year old seminarist who was very fond of playing ball. Once a certain priest passing by wondered if for a future priest the youth was too keen on his pursuit and asked him: "What would you do if you learned that in half an hour the end of the world was coming?" To which Lodovico replied: "I'd play on." According to the Russian thinker Georgy Fedotov, the importance of culture lies in precisely that: we go on playing ball on the verge of Doomsday."

"The very ideology of "cultural production" is antithetical to all culture, as is that of visibility and of the polyvalent space: culture is a site of the secret, of seduction, of initiation, of a restrained and highly ritualized symbolic exchange."

"While a gigantic amount has been written or spoken, culture in the end is the fraction that gets remembered."

"Computers will not preserve cultures. But they can be used to foster cultural pluralism and to provide people everywhere with the power to make their own bilingual educational materials, or to print pamphlets on how to grow better rice, or to record for future generations the customs and lore of those now alive."

"Politics is downstream of culture."

"Cultures are not made from free-floating values. They are rooted in institutions and organizations."

"The improvement of the soul consists in raising it above what is narrow, particular, individual, selfish, to the universal and unconfined. To improve a man is to liberalize, enlarge him in thought, feeling, and purpose. Narrowness of intellect and heart, this is the degradation from which all culture aims to rescue the human being."

"Culture is at once the expression and the reward of an effort, and any system of civilization which tends to relax effort will suffer a corresponding depreciation of culture."

"Culture suggests agriculture, but civilization suggests the city. In one aspect civilization is the habit of civility; and civility is the refinement which townsmen, who made the word, thought possible only in the civitas or city."

"Culture is all the things and ideas ever devised by humans working and living together."

"The astonishing cluster of them [geniuses] that appeared in Athens during the fifth and fourth centuries B. C. ...what changed was the culture, which allowed exceptional minds to flourish."

"To say that the invention "was in the air" or "the times were ripe for it" are just other ways of stating that the inventors did not do the inventing, but that the cultures did."

"Culture is the attempt by man to realize the conceivable in the possible. Man’s consciousness of himself within his environment distinguishes him from the lower animals, and turns him into the only animal capable of culture. This consciousness, his highest faculty, allows him to project mentally states of being that do not exist at the moment. Able to construct a past and future, he becomes a creature of time – a historian and a prophet. More than this, he can imagine objects and states of being that have never existed and may never exist in the real world – he becomes a maker of art. Thus, for example, though the ancient Greeks did not know how to fly, still they could imagine it. The myth of Icarus was the formulation in fantasy of their conception of the state ‘flying’. But man was not only able to project the conceivable into fantasy. He also learned to impose it on reality: by accumulating knowledge, learning experience, about that reality and how to handle it, he could shape it to his liking. This accumulation of skills for controlling the environment, technology, is another means to reaching the same end, the realization of the conceivable in the possible."

"In science, just as in art and in life, only that which is true to culture is true to nature."

"Religious ideas have sprung from the same need as all the other achievements of culture: from the necessity for defending itself against the crushing supremacy of nature."

"Whoever controls the media — the images — controls the culture."

"Remember, we live in a culture of immediacy. We live in a culture in which simplistic answers override more complicated answers. We live in a culture in which language is reduced to its bare bones. We live in a culture in which language is now in the service of violence."

"The way you sustain and improve upon a culture is by fostering a sense of gratitude for what is best about it. You celebrate the good in your story while putting the bad in the correct context."

"Myths and fictions accustomed people, nearly from the moment of birth, to think in certain ways, to believe in accordance with certain standards, to want certain things, and to observe certain rules. They thereby create artificial instincts that enable millions of strangers to cooperate effectively. This network of artificial instinct is called 'Culture'."

"Culture is neither natural nor artificial, neither genetically transmitted nor rationally designed. It is a tradition of learnt rules of conduct which have never been ‘invented’ and whose functions the acting individuals usually do not understand. There is surely as much justification to speak of the wisdom of culture as of the wisdom of nature—except, perhaps, that, because of the powers of government, errors of the former are less easily corrected."

"When two cultures collide is the only time when true suffering exists"

"Culture is constituted by human labor, the aesthetic, and the spirit. In this regard, culture is an integrated way of life which shuns false dichotomies between sacred and so-called secular. Human labor denotes a mutuality between base and superstructure. The aesthetic argues for a norm grounded in internal beauty and ethical functionality. And the spirit is the vivifying thread woven throughout all of culture."

"Our aim is to stop the life cycle of the enemy culture and replace it with our own revolutionary culture. This can be done only by creating perfect disorder within the cycle of the enemy culture's life process and leaving a power vacuum to be filled by our building revolutionary culture."

"The disdain for culture expressed by Johst and Fanon is not identical, however. Both despise the deceit of culture, but for opposite reasons. For Johst, culture is in itself a fraud, the cheap talk of weaklings; for Fanon, culture deceives by reneging on its promises. Johst and the Nazis hated culture itself; Fanon hated its hypocrisy, a very different notion."

"Wenn ich Kultur höre … entsichere ich meinen Browning!"

"Genes are the ultimate source of culture."

"These expressions — "culture" and "civilization" — have to be used in their Continental sense to make the point clear. "Culture" is the sum of all products which represent a personal manifestation, like painting, poetry, religion, philosophy, and the humanities. "Civilization" is nonpersonal. It is the sum total of all efforts which contribute to the increase of comfort or "usefulness" in the practical sense. Bathtubs, dentists' tools, railways, and traffic regulations are products of civilization. […] Yet while civilization is basically lack of friction, smoothness, comfort, and material enjoyment we have to look at traditional Christianity as being something "uncomfortable." […] It is difficult to project into the frame of a comfortistic civilization the picture of Christ, hanging on the cross with a body convulsed by pain, the palms torn to shreds by the heavy nails, the hairs glued to the scalp by sweat and coagulated blood. It ought to be repeated again that culture is always "magnificent." […] Civilization is geocentric comfort. But culture, which must be bought by bitter suffering (there is neither art nor sanctity without suffering), points always toward heaven. And the ochlocratic millennium hell bent upon avoiding suffering will turn its back toward heaven."

"One aspect of a “throwaway” culture is the desire to look the other way when it comes to evils like euthanasia, best exemplified by the changing terminology."

"We are our culture and tradition; If there is no culture or tradition we are no one."

"The impact of a technological culture, with a firm belief in its own progress, on a is usually to the detriment of the simpler culture."

"Each form of the sacrosanct was regarded by members of the culture which gave rise to it as a revelation of the Truth."

"Our art culture makes no attempt to search the past for precedents, but transforms the entire past into a sequence of provisional responses to a problem that remains intact."

"Culture would seem ... first and foremost, to be the knowledge of what makes man something other than an accident of the universe, be it by deepening his harmony with the world, or by the lucid consciousness of his revolt from it. ... Culture is the sum of all the forms of art, of love and of thought, which, in the course of centuries, have enabled man to be less enslaved."

"Culture itself is neither education nor law-making: it is an atmosphere and a heritage."

"The prestige of culture is among the major means by which powers of decision are made to seem part of an unchallengeable authority. That is why the cultural apparatus, no matter how internally free, tends in every nation to become a close adjunct of national authority and a leading agency of nationalist propaganda."

"That is the secret of all culture: it does not provide artificial limbs, wax noses or spectacles—that which can provide these things is, rather, only sham education. Culture is liberation, the removal of all the weeds, rubble and vermin that want to attack the tender buds of the plant."

"Two cultures rarely comprehend each other, especially when one is waxing and the other waning. The weaker needs to copy the stronger."

"Our world is organized in large measure around groups with pervasive cultures.... membership of such groups... greatly affects one's opportunities.... If the culture is decaying, or if it is persecuted or discriminated against, the options and opportunities open to its members will shrink."

"Culture binds men and women in a deeper way than political and even geographical borders—unless borders are the material expression of the culture of a nation that may have also organized itself in a state, which in this case is the visible manifestation of a national culture."

"A culture is a total way of life. It embraces what people ate and what they wore; the way they walked and the way they talked; the manner in which they treated death and greeted the newborn."

"Woman—mother and wife—witness of the development of man's genius, can appreciate the great significance of the culture of thought and knowledge."

"Ecosystems majorly shape culture — but then that culture can be exported and persist in radically different places for millennia. Stated most straightforwardly, most of earth’s humans have inherited their beliefs about the nature of birth and death and everything in between and thereafter from preliterate Middle Eastern pastoralists."

"If the West is heading toward some kind of crisis, it's worth asking ourselves a few basic questions. Modern society as we normally define it—a secular culture built around tolerance, reason, and democratic values—occupies a rather small portion of the world, and there are signs that it is shrinking. Is modernity the inexorable force of progress that we tend to assume? Is it a mere moment of human history that is fast fading? If it is something to value, how can we rediscover it, separate the good and the bad in it, make it relevant and vital?"

"The multitude are matter-of-fact. They live in commonplace concerns and interests. Their problems are, how to get more plentiful and better food and drink, more comfortable and beautiful clothing, more commodious dwellings, for themselves and their children. When they seek relaxation from their labors for material things, they gossip of the daily happenings, or they play games or dance or go to the theatre or club, or they travel or they read story books, or accounts in the newspapers of elections, murders, peculations, marriages, divorces, failures and successes in business; or they simply sit in a kind of lethargy. They fall asleep and awake to tread again the beaten path. While such is their life, it is not possible that they should take interest or find pleasure in religion, poetry, philosophy, or art. To ask them to read books whose life-breath is pure thought and beauty is as though one asked them to read things written in a language they do not understand and have no desire to learn. A taste for the best books, as a taste for whatever is best, is acquired; and it can be acquired only by long study and practice. It is a result of free and disinterested self-activity, of efforts to attain what rarely brings other reward than the consciousness of having loved and striven for the best. But the many have little appreciation of what does not flatter or soothe the senses. Their world, like the world of children and animals, is good enough for them; meat and drink, dance and song, are worth more, in their eyes, than all the thoughts of all the literatures. A love tale is better than a great poem, and the story of a bandit makes Plutarch seem tiresome. This is what they think and feel, and what, so long as they remain what they are, they will continue to think and feel. We do not urge a child to read Plato—why should we find fault with the many for not loving the best books?"

"One ought not to hoard culture. It should be adapted and infused into society as a leaven. Liberality of culture does not mean illiberality of its benefits."

"Cultural products which present foreign wars as the heroic effort of a master race to ennoble mankind are, to the degree they are successful as art, objectively in the interests of imperialists, who are people who make foreign wars against other races for profit."

"Cultural products that present people who have no money or power as innately stupid or depraved, and thus unworthy of money or power, are in the interests of the ruling class and the power structure as it stands."

"Cultural products which present women who do not want to be household slaves or universal mothers or sex objects as bitches or sexual failures objectively aid male supremacy."

"[Culture is] that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society."

"I didn't learn until I was in college about all the other cultures, and I should have learned that in the first grade. A first grader should understand that his or her culture isn't a rational invention; that there are thousands of other cultures and they all work pretty well; that all cultures function on faith rather than truth; that there are lots of alternatives to our own society. Cultural relativity is defensible and attractive. It's also a source of hope. It means we don't have to continue this way if we don't like it."

"No one can take culture seriously if he believes that it is only the uppermost of several layers of epiphenomena resting on a primary reality of economic activity."

"Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Culture's got to go"

"The use of culture is that it helps us, by means of its spiritual standard of perfection, to regard wealth as but machinery, and not only to say as a matter of words that we regard wealth as but machinery, but really to perceive and feel that it is so. If it were not for this purging effect wrought upon our minds by culture, the whole world, the future as well as the present, would inevitably belong to the Philistines. The people who believe most that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being very rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich, are just the very people whom we call the Philistines. Culture says: “Consider these people, then, their way of life, their habits, their manners, the very tones of their voice; look at them attentively; observe the literature they read, the things which give them pleasure, the words which come forth out of their mouths, the thoughts which make the furniture of their minds; would any amount of wealth be worth having with the condition that one was to become just like these people by having it?”"

"The great law of culture is: Let each become all that he was created capable of being."

"A rational, moral being cannot, without infinite wrong, be converted into a mere instrument of others’ gratification. He is necessarily an end, not a means. A mind, in which are sown the seeds of wisdom, disinterestedness, firmness of purpose, and piety, is worth more than all the outward material interests of a world. It exists for itself, for its own perfection, and must not be enslaved to its own or others’ animal wants."

"When I speak of the purpose of self-culture, I mean that it should be sincere. In other words, we must make self-culture really and truly our end, or choose it for its own sake, and not merely as a means or instrument of something else. And here I touch a common and very pernicious error. Not a few persons desire to improve themselves only to get property and to rise in the world; but such do not properly choose improvement, but something outward and foreign to themselves; and so low an impulse can produce only a stinted, partial, uncertain growth. A man, as I have said, is to cultivate himself because he is a man. He is to start with the conviction that there is something greater within him than in the whole material creation, than in all the worlds which press on the eye and ear; and that inward improvements have a worth and dignity in themselves quite distinct from the power they give over outward things."

"Culture is at once the expression and the reward of an effort, and any system of civilization which tends to relax effort will suffer a corresponding depreciation of culture."

"When the native hears a speech about Western culture he pulls out his knife—or at least he makes sure it is within reach. The violence with which the supremacy of white values is affirmed and the aggressiveness which has permeated the victory of these values over the ways of life and of thought of the native mean that, in revenge, the native laughs in mockery when Western values are mentioned in front of him."

"Everything excellent limits us momentarily because we feel unable to match up to it; only insofar as we subsequently accept it into our own culture, absorb it as belonging to our own mental and temperamental powers, do we come to love and value it."

"We consider classical music to be the epitome and quintessence of our culture, because it is that culture’s clearest, most significant gesture and expression. In this music we possess the heritage of classical antiquity and Christianity, a spirit of serenely cheerful and brave piety, a superbly chivalric morality. For in the final analysis every important cultural gesture comes down to a morality, a model for human behavior concentrated into a gesture."

"We do not truly possess our humanity and culture as long as we live only in the present, in our own accidental environment."

"Culture is the sum of all the forms of art, of love and of thought, which, in the course of centuries, have enabled man to be less enslaved."

"In its relation to the reality of daily life, the high culture of the past was many things—opposition and adornment, outcry and resignation. But it was also the appearance of the realm of freedom: the refusal to behave."

"The Philistine ... strictly separates “the earnestness of life” (under which term he understands his calling, his business, and his wife and child) from ... trivialities, and among the latter he includes all things which have any relation to culture. Therefore, woe to the art that takes itself seriously, that has a notion of what it may exact, and that dares to endanger his income, his business, and his habits!"

"The service of philosophy, of speculative culture, towards the human spirit is to rouse, to startle it into sharp and eager observation. … Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end."

"In our bourgeois Western world total labor has vanquished leisure. Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for non-activity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture—and ourselves."

"It is natural for great minds—the true teachers of humanity—to care little about the constant company of others; just as little as the schoolmaster cares for joining in the gambols of the noisy crowd of boys which surround him. The mission of these great minds is to guide mankind over the sea of error to the haven of truth—to draw it forth from the dark abysses of a barbarous vulgarity up into the light of culture and refinement."

"The first effect of modernism was to make high-culture difficult: to surround beauty with a wall of erudition."

"The disinterested love of truth which culture fosters is akin to the unselfishness which is a characteristic of the good."

"The man of culture finds the whole past relevant; the bourgeois and the barbarian find relevant only what has some pressing connection with their appetite."

"At present, in consequence of the existence of private property, a great many people are enabled to develop a certain very limited amount of Individualism. They are either under no necessity to work for their living, or are enabled to choose the sphere of activity that is really congenial to them, and gives them pleasure. These are the poets, the philosophers, the men of science, the men of culture – in a word, the real men, the men who have realised themselves, and in whom all Humanity gains a partial realisation. Upon the other hand, there are a great many people who, having no private property of their own, and being always on the brink of sheer starvation, are compelled to do the work of beasts of burden, to do work that is quite uncongenial to them, and to which they are forced by the peremptory, unreasonable, degrading Tyranny of want."

"Local Futures works to renew ecological, social, and spiritual well-being by promoting a systemic shift towards economic localization. A pioneer of the new economy movement, Local Futures has been raising awareness for four decades about the need to shift direction – away from dependence on global monopolies, and towards decentralized, regional economies."

"These programs are helping to catalyze a global movement for systemic change. Recognition of the importance of local economies is at an all-time high. Through our events and resources, we promote a holistic view of what it will take to heal the damage caused by the corporate-run economy and build structures that foster human and ecological wellbeing."

"Local Futures has been involved with cultural, economic and ecological issues for more than four decades now, and we are proud of our accomplishments. What follows is far from comprehensive, but gives an idea of the depth and breadth of our work. Our organization has always been ahead of its time... we were warning about the dangers of both biotechnology and so-called “free trade” (and the link between them) three decades ago, while at the same time pioneering the localization movement – the local food movement, in particular. It is very gratifying to see that these issues are finally beginning to receive the attention they deserve"

"Innovation is being able to tell the same story in a manner that it has never been told before. It’s finding new ways to capture the hearts and minds of your customers through the right tools, technology or a simple gesture that turns a customer into a fan."

"Mr. Rockefeller was not a man to be hurried into precipitate action. Careful study and long deliberation were for him invariably prerequisite to any move in an unknown field. It was two years before the idea was sufficiently matured in his mind to enable him to go forward, and during this period there were many conferences between him and Mr. Gates. On June 29, 1909, he signed a deed of trust, turning over to three trustees—his son; Harold McCormick; and Mr. Gates—72,569 shares of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, valued at $50,000,000, the trust to be known as the "Rockefeller Foundation.""

"The offices of the Rockefeller Foundation were in the RCA builing on West 50th Street, fifty-fourth floor, and from there they had their public health and research empire all over the world, where they had considerable weight in various countries. It was interesting. It served a very useful purpose, I think. The foundation never got full credit, in my estimate, for all the things it did for mankind. It didn't want it. It always kept a low visibility. But they did some wonderful things, especially in malaria and hookworm in the south—that's how they started, working on hookworm—and then they went into malaria, which was and still is a great problem."

"In the Mahabharata, the ceremony for the oath of a new king includes the admonition: 'Be like a garland-maker, O king, and not like a charcoal burner.' The garland symbolizes social coherence; it is a metaphor for dharmic diversity in which flowers of many colors and forms are strung harmoniously for the most pleasing effect. In contrast, the charcoal burner is a metaphor for the brute-force reduction of diversity into homogeneity, where diverse living substances are transformed into uniformly lifeless ashes."

"The oral tradition is vital; it heals itself and the tribal web by adapting to the flow of the present while never relinquishing its connection to the past. Its adaptability has always been required, as many generations have experienced."

"The oral tradition is more than a record of a people’s culture. It is the creative source of their collective and individual selves."

"The oral tradition is a living body. It is in continuous flux, which enables it to accommodate itself to the real circumstances of a people’s lives."

"I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world."

"Tusa (1977) believes that "the so-called 'grave culture' is not in fact due to a sudden interruption in the life of the valley but to an appreciable, substantial change perhaps due to new contributions that are nevertheless in line with the cultural traditions of the previous period." He echoes objections that have been raised so many times by South Asian archaeologists: "The existence of contributions from the outside, for too long used to justify cultural change in the sub-Himalayan area, has in my opinion been exaggerated even though it could conceivably have been a factor in cultural change without being the only one" (690). As far as he is concerned, "to attribute a historical value to . . . the slender links with northwestern Iran and northern Afghanistan . . . is a mistake "because . . ." it could well be the spread of particular objects and, as such, objects that could circulate more easily quite apart from any real contacts" (691-692)."

"Am I not a man and a brother?"

"I prefer not to use the term race, for race is a thing much more obscure and difficult to determine than is usually imagined. In dealing with it the trenchant distinctions current in the popular mind are wholly out of place."

"The darkness of her Oriental eye Accorded with her Moorish origin (Her blood was not all Spanish, by the by; In Spain, you know, this is a sort of sin)."

"If we are to have that harmony and tranquility, that union of spirit which is the foundation of real national genius and national progress, we must all realize that there are true Americans who did not happen to be born in our section of the country, who do not attend our place of religious worship, who are not of our racial stock, or who are not proficient in our language. If we are to create on this continent a free republic and an enlightened civilization that will be capable of reflecting the true greatness and glory of mankind, it will be necessary to regard these differences as accidental and unessential. We shall have to look beyond the outward manifestations of race and creed. Divine providence has not bestowed upon any race a monopoly of patriotism and character. The same principle that it is necessary to apply to the attitude of mind among our own people it is also necessary to apply to the attitude of mind among the different nations."

"Fleecy locks and black complexion Cannot forfeit nature’s claim; Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in white and black the same."

"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace the savage races throughout the world."

"It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant."

"All races and varieties of men are improvable. This is the grand distinguishing attribute of humanity, and separates man from all other animals. If it could be shown that any particular race of men are literally incapable of improvement, we might hesitate to welcome them here. But no such men are anywhere to be found, and if they were, it is not likely that they would ever trouble us with their presence. ... I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity, and when there is a supposed conflict between human and national rights, it is safe to go the side of humanity."

"Races and varieties of the human family appear and disappear, but humanity remains and will remain forever... [P]eople will one day be truer to this idea than now, and will say with Scotia's inspired son, ‍'‍A man's a man for a’ that.‍'‍ When that day shall come, they will not pervert and sin against the verity of language as they now do by calling a man of mixed blood, a negro; they will tell the truth... It is only prejudice against the negro which calls every one, however nearly connected with the white race, and however remotely connected with the negro race, a negro. The motive is not a desire to elevate the negro, but to humiliate and degrade those of mixed blood; not a desire to bring the negro up, but to cast the mulatto and the quadroon down by forcing him below an arbitrary and hated color line."

"My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a negro, and my great-grandfather was an ape; my pedigree began where yours left off."

"An ingenious anatomist has written a book to prove that races are imperishable, but nations are pliant political constructions, easily changed or destroyed."

"[R]ace is not based on biology but race is rather an idea that we ascribe to biology... The biology becomes an excuse for social differences. The social differences become naturalized in biology."

"Racial classification is totally cultural. Who's Tiger Woods? Who's Colin Powell? Colin Powell's as Irish as he is African. Being black has been defined as just looking dark enough that anyone can see you are."

"Race is a concept that was invented to categorize the perceived biological, social, and cultural differences between human groups... Race is a human invention. We created it, we have used it in ways that have been in many, many respects quite negative and quite harmful. And we can think ourselves out of it. We made it, we can unmake it."

"The biological fact of race and the myth of "race" should be distinguished. For all practical social purposes "race" is not so much a biological phenomenon as a social myth. The myth "race" has created an enormous amount of human and social damage. In recent years it has taken a heavy toll in human lives and caused untold suffering. It still prevents the normal development of millions of human beings and deprives civilization of the effective co-operation of productive minds. The biological differences between ethnic groups should be disregarded from the standpoint of social acceptance and social action. The unity of mankind from both the biological and social viewpoint is the main thing. To recognize this and to act accordingly is the first requirement of modern man."

"I have received the favor of your letter of August 17th, and with it the volume you were so kind as to send me on the Literature of Negroes. Be assured that no person living wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a complete refutation of the doubts I have myself entertained and expressed on the grade of understanding allotted to them by nature, and to find that in this respect they are on a par with ourselves. My doubts were the result of personal observation on the limited sphere of my own State, where the opportunities for the development of their genius were not favorable, and those of exercising it still less so. I expressed them therefore with great hesitation; but whatever be their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the person or property of others. On this subject they are gaining daily in the opinions of nations, and hopeful advances are making towards their reestablishment on an equal footing with the other colors of the human family. I pray you therefore to accept my thanks for the many instances you have enabled me to observe of respectable intelligence in that race of men, which cannot fail to have effect in hastening the day of their relief."

"Americans of every race and color have died in battle to protect our freedom. Americans of every race and color have worked to build a nation of widening opportunities. Now our generation of Americans has been called on to continue the unending search for justice within our own borders. We believe that all men are created equal. Yet many are denied equal treatment. We believe that all men have certain unalienable rights. Yet many Americans do not enjoy those rights. We believe that all men are entitled to the blessings of liberty. Yet millions are being deprived of those blessings--not because of their own failures, but because of the color of their skin. The reasons are deeply embedded in history and tradition and the nature of man. We can understand--without rancor or hatred--how this all happened. But it cannot continue. Our Constitution, the foundation of our Republic, forbids it. The principles of our freedom forbid it. Morality forbids it."

"No ally is better than one's own race."

"Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!"

"The law of nations knows of no distinction of color, and if an enemy of the United States should enslave and sell any captured persons of their army, it would be a case for the severest retaliation, if not redressed upon complaint."

"[L]et us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man; this race and that race and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position; discarding our standard that we have left us. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal."

"There are no races, there are only clines."

"We have seen the mere distinction of color made, in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man."

"The omelet called “race” has no existence outside the statistical frying- pan in which it has been reduced by the heat of the anthropological imagination."

"The emotions between the races could never be pure; even love was tarnished by the desire to find in the other some element that was missing in ourselves. Whether we sought out our demons or salvation, the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart."

"Racial differences will fade away in the New World. Speak not of races. The drops of different seas are alike."

"The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!"

"I have no race prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. All I care to know is that a man is a human being, and that is enough for me; he can't be any worse."

"I believe in recognizing every human being as a human being, neither white, black, brown nor red. When you are dealing with humanity as one family, there's no question of integration or intermarriage. It's just one human being marrying another human being, or one human being living around and with another human being."

"Arguments for inclusion produce the very exclusions they are meant to cure. ... The question that cannot be uttered is, just how different can these different folks be and still be recognized as just like everyone else?"

"Assimilationist politics, ... according to its critics, looks to expand the definition of normal to include lesbians and gays, rather than attacking and undermining the very processes by which (some) subjects become normalized and others marginalized."

"Heraldry has been styled 'the science of fools with long memories.’ That its true objects have been misunderstood, and that its reputation has been seriously damaged by injudicious writers in attempting to attach fanciful interpretations to devices and tinctures, there can be no question; but, as the noble science has existed from time immemorial, so must it continue to flourish as long as the pride of ancestry forms any part of the nature of man. Indeed, in the present day, the education of no gentleman can be considered complete unless he possess at least an elementary knowledge of Heraldry."

"Westward the course of empire takes its way; The first four acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day: Time’s noblest offspring is the last."

"The West is a series of institutions and values. The West is not a geographical place. Russia is European, but not Western. Japan is Western, but not European. ‘Western’ means rule of law, democracy, private property, open markets, respect for the individual, diversity, pluralism of opinion, and all the other freedoms that we enjoy, which we sometimes take for granted. We sometimes forget where they came from. But that’s what the West is."

"The idea of the war chariot originating on the steppes has recently been revived, chiefly on the basis of the calibrated radiocarbon dates from Sintashta and Krivoe Ozero... The present reconstructions of the Sintashta and Krivoe Ozero vehicles above the axle level raise many doubts and questions, but one cannot argue about something for which there is no evidence.It is from the wheel-track measurements and the dimensions and positions of the wheels alone that we may legitimately draw conclusions and these are alone sufficient to establish that the Sintashta-Petrovka vehicles would not be manoeuvrable enough for use either in warfare or in racing."

"Only at the end of the 4th millennium BCE did the wagon of the pre-Caucasian Steppe enter the burial practices of the Yamnaya and the Novotitarovskaya cultures."

"Aleksander Gej points out that the Novotitarovskaja culture certainly liked its wagons, indeed, the number of graves with wagons increased exponentially relative to the Maikop culture from a handful to several hundred. This culture nevertheless pro- duced the same model of 4-wheeled vehicle until the Catacomb Grave culture of the 2nd millennium BCE, with Gej pointing out that there was no evidence for a steering mechanism even at this late stage. This seems to me to be a fatal flaw in Anthony’s theory, since, as Burmeister points out, an unsteerable wagon would have been confined to a steppe envi- ronment. As soon as it attempted to expand into a densely forested area, it would have collided with the nearest tree. Anthony’s steppe dwellers may thus have had plenty of wagons, but none of them were fit for the grand purpose of spreading Indo-European languages and instead were probably popular more as mobile homes suitable only for the Steppe itself... The above suggests that his bronze age riders only shaped the modern world in that they were the ancestors of the trailer park, johnny-come-latelys to a Eurasia through which key vehicle and other technologies had already disseminated for the simple reason that it had already been networked to lesser or greater degrees for millennia."