Quotes about Culture

even the worst and most painful family experiences are part of our total identity. God had a plan in placing us in our particular families and cultures. And the more we know about our families, the more we know about ourselves—and the more freedom we have to make decisions how we want to live. We can say: "This is what I want to keep. This is what I do not want to bring with me to the next generation.

In a culture as frenetic and inattentive as ours, a "slowed down" Christian who is a contemplative presence to God and others is an extraordinary gift.

You would think the church and its leaders would be all for healthy leadership and whatever it takes to achieve it. But the truth is that there are parts of church leadership culture that actually work hard against it.

Art has tremendous power to shape culture and touch the human heart. Its artifacts embody the ideas and desires of the coming generation. This means that what is happening in the arts today is prophetic of what will happen in our culture tomorrow. It also means that when Christians abandon the artistic community, we lose a significant opportunity to coniniu- nicate Christ to our culture.

Generally speaking, the reason the church fails to have a more positive, transforming influence on our culture is that we do not fully grasp the Bible-based, Christ-centered, Spirit-empowered, God-glorifying perspective that belongs to us by grace—which is why we need to learn how to live the right worldview.

In a certain sense we can be proud to have introduced this hairstyle to Europe. 'Plica polonica' should be added to the list of our inventions, alongside crude oil, pierogi and vodka.

I think everything that any actor does, I would assume, is shaped by how and where they grew up.

You westerners are the ones we can't understand. God has given you so much, you have been so blessed…why are so many people in your country so unhappy?

By failing to read or listen to poets, society dooms itself to inferior modes of articulation, those of the politician, the salesman or the charlatan.

Our own poor poets, I am afraid, have been so intimidated by our clinics and laboratories that they have abandoned the first principles of beginning, that of the festival; and the heart of the festival has always been the atmosphere of myth, of delight.

Myth is much more important and true than history.

The symbols of mythology are not manufactured; they cannot be ordered, invented, or permanently suppressed. They are spontaneous productions of the psyche.