Expresser Culture Quotes

Would the fate of China have been different if Stilwell had been allowed to reform the army and create an effective combat force of 90 divisions? ... This assumption might have been true if Asia were clay in the hands of the West. But the"regenerative idea," stilwell's or another's, could not be imposed from the outside. The Kuomintang military structure could not be reformed without reform of the system from which it sprang and, as Stillwell himself recognized, to reform such a system "it must be torn to pieces."

In great things, wrote Erasmus, it is enough to have tried. Stilwell's mission was America's supreme try in China. He made the maximum effort because his temperament permitted no less: he never slackened and he never gave up. Yet the mission failed in its ultimate purpose because the goal was unachievable. The impulse was not Chinese. Combat efficiency and the offensive spirit, like the Christianity and democracy offered by missionaries and foreign advisers, were not indigenous demands of the society and culture to which they were brought. Even the Yellow River Road that Stilwell built in 1921 had disappeared twelve years later. China was a problem for which there was no American solution. The American effort to sustain the status quo could not supply an outworn government with strength and stability or popular support. It could not hold up a husk nor long delay the cyclical passing of the mandate of heaven. In the end, China went her own way as if the Am ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

Goosing my own Maverick. ~ Caitlin Moran

Because the stuff that they feed kids now, they'll have a bunch of idiots in the next millennium as far as art and culture is concerned. ~ Billy Higgins

America is a noisy culture, unlike, say, Finland, which values silence. Individualism, dominant in the U.S. and Germany, promotes the direct, fast-paced style of communication associated with extraversion. Collectivistic societies, such as those in East Asia, value privacy and restraint, qualities more characteristic of introverts. ~ Laurie Helgoe

The stories surrounding eating durians remind us that literature should incorporate low culture, bringing it closer to lived reality. These legends come not from the pens of the elite, but are assembled from the words of the masses, both written and spoken, passed from one person to another - the only way to create a text this deep and compelling. ~ Wong Yoon Wah

The moral nihilism of celebrity culture is played out on reality television shows, most of which encourage a dark voyeurism into other people's humiliation, pain, weakness, and betrayal. ~ Chris Hedges

The type of fig leaf which each culture employs to cover its social taboos offers a twofold description of its morality. It reveals that certain unacknowledged behavior exists and it suggests the form that such behavior takes. ~ Freda Adler

What they [psychedelics] cause is what I'm advocating, a fundamental revaluation of cultural values, because culture as we're practicing it currently is causing a lot of pain to a lot of people, and animals, and ecosystems, none of whom were ever allowed to vote on whether they wanted this process to go in this direction. ~ Terence McKenna

I know that these examples are symptomatic of the cruelty culture that we live in today and that everyone is fair game, but think about how and what they chose to attack. They went after my appearance and my mothering - two kill shots taken straight from the list of feminine norms. They didn't go after my intellect or my arguments. That wouldn't hurt enough. ~ Brene Brown

No one leaves his or her world without being transfixed by its roots, or with a vacuum for a soul. We carry with us the memory of many fabrics, a self soaked in our history, our culture; a memory, sometimes scattered, sometimes sharp and clear, of the streets of our childhood, of our adolescence; the reminiscence of something distant that suddenly stands out before us, in us, a shy gesture, an open hand, a smile lost in time and misunderstanding, a sentence, a simple sentence, possibly now forgotten by the one who said it. A word for so long a time attempted and never spoken, always stifled in inhibition, in the fear of being rejected- which as it implies a lack of confidence in ourselves, also means refusal to risk. ~ Paulo Freire

Change is the only constant, whether it's in music, culture, dance or fashion. ~ Sonu Nigam

Gray and Drew sitting side by side, with their muscled physiques taking up a good portion of the booth, look like a comic book come to life.

They catch me staring and both say, "What?" at the same time.

Smiling, I shake my head. "Nothing. I just had this image of Thor and Captain America having a beer."

They both color at the same time. Which is kind of cute.

"Ha!" cries Anna at my side. Her cheeks plump with a wide grin. "I had that Captain America thought about Drew too."

Drew perks up. "You did, huh?"

Gray snorts. "Dude, I've just been compared to Thor. I totally win."

"What the hell does Thor have? A little hammer?" Drew waves a hand as if to say, please.

But Gray smirks. "At least he isn't hiding behind a wussy shield. Thor is a god. Enough said."

"A boring god with the personality of a post," Drew volleys.

"And you're saying Captain America isn't boring? Dude. He doesn't even understand modern culture. He's like a 1940s Boy Scout."

Drew and Gray eyeball each other for a second. Then Drew relents with a laugh. "Touché. ~ Kristen Callihan

I think brown marks a reunion of peoples, an end to ancient wanderings. Rival cultures and creeds conspire with Spring to create children of a beauty, perhaps of a harmony, previously unknown. Or long forgotten. ~ Richard Rodriguez

How can we pick and choose which parts of the Bible to follow? One thing is God's will and another is just cultural differences? What if it's all cultural? What if homosexuality or saving yourself for marriage is as outdated as women staying silent in church or Leviticus forbidding tattoos? ~ Trevor D. Richardson

'Memorial Day' is about 'spring break' girls-gone-wild culture which is the seedy underbelly of our American Puritanism, the inverse side of the coin. It's also about how we forcefully exported that culture and then pretended to not know what we were doing. ~ Josh Fox

I explored rock culture and what the guitar can do though people like Jimmy Page and John McLaughlin, and the music moves away from pop. ~ Johnny Marr

Challenge your own status quo - before someone else does. ~ Ron Kaufman

When I was 17, I worked in a mentoring program in Harlem designed to improve the community. That's when I first gained an appreciation of the Harlem Renaissance, a time when African-Americans rose to prominence in American culture. For the first time, they were taken seriously as artists, musicians, writers, athletes, and as political thinkers. ~ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Dumbing down takes many forms: art that is good for you, museums that flatter you, universities that increase your self-esteem. Culture, after all, is really about you. ~ Denis Dutton

Puffy's contribution to hip-hop culture was the remix. He offered us the music that his mom played in front of him, with newer drums and younger artists. That worked, and will consistently be there. The remix comes right after the original record, that's something Puffy did to influence the culture. ~ Curtis Jackson

…of constipation of the brain & diarrhea of the mouth. ~ Jack Kerouac

Design is both a political and cultural force for change, although most designers choose not to think about the power it has. ~ Jonathan Barnbrook

Expression on his face. He's in his early thirties, tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in jeans, a black polo shirt, and black flip-flops. With his short brown hair, reddish goatee, and sideburns, McHugh looks like a typical Gen Xer, but he speaks in the soothing, considered tones of a college professor. McHugh doesn't preach or worship at Saddleback, but we've chosen to meet here because it's such an important symbol of evangelical culture. Since services are just about to start, there's little time to chat. Saddleback offers six different "worship venues," each housed in its own building or tent and set to its own beat: Worship Center, ~ Susan Cain

Poetry presents the thing in order to convey the feeling. It should be precise about the thing and reticent about the feeling - for as soon as the mind responds, connects with the thing, the feeling shows in the words; this is how poetry enters deeply into us.

If the poet presents directly feelings which overwhelm ... they cannot strengthen morality and refine culture, set heaven and earth in motion, and call up the spirits! ~ Wei Tai (魏泰)

Calculated acts of sabotage requires a large network or culture of saboteurs, which indicates why the Russian sabotage did not work: rather than functioning together as a cohesive, machine-like system they permitted each other their own individual pace for operating. ~ Anonymous

political and economic development among civilizations are clearly rooted in their different cultures. East Asian economic success has its source in East Asian culture, as do the difficulties East Asian societies have had in achieving stable democratic political systems. Islamic ~ Samuel P. Huntington

Why do we accept this one-size-fits-all situation as a given when we know perfectly well that adults don't organize themselves this way? We often marvel at how introverted, geeky kids "blossom" into secure and happy adults. We liken it to a metamorphosis. However, maybe it's not the children who change but their environments. As adults, they get to select the careers, spouses, and social circles that suit them. They don't have to live in whatever culture they're plunked into. Research from a field known as "person-environment fit" shows that people flourish when, in the words of psychologist Brian Little, they're "engaged in occupations, roles or settings that are concordant with their personalities." The inverse is also true: kids stop learning when they feel emotionally threatened. ~ Susan Cain

When your team member makes a request, take it seriously. Those who make an effort of asking cares about your organisation, those who don't ask don't care. ~ Janna Cachola

For a long time Christianity has sewn its teachings into the fabric of Western culture. That was a good thing ... . But the season of sewing is ending. Now is a time for rending, not for the sake of disengaging from culture or retreating from the public square, but so that our salt does not lose its savor. ~ R. R. Reno

Times change but principles don't.
Times change but lands do not.
Times change but our culture and
our language remain the same.
And that's what you have to keep intact.
It's not what you wear - it's what's in your heart. ~ Oren Lyons

In the Soviet Union you weren't allowed to speak out against the government. In the US you cannot speak out against sponsors. ~ Kalle Lasn