Thor Heyerdahl Quotes

Friends from the press, China needs to learn more about the world, and the world also needs to learn more about China. I hope you will continue to make more efforts and contributions to deepening the mutual understanding between China and the countries of the world.

It is through the European that civilization arrives ... precisely because of their superiority, the civilized people our responsible for an evolving world.

In the late 20th century, it became possible to travel between cultures, between the old world and the new, with great ease. So when you go back, you take the changed person with you who, in turn, changes things that otherwise might have stayed the same.

Because of the long, long history of British shipping, immigration, trade, empire, missionaries, you can have a better shot at telling a worldwide story in the British Museum's collection than any other. Britain has been more connected with the rest of the world than any other country, for longer.

Malaysians talk with Mauritians, Arabs with Australians, South Africans with Sri Lankans, and Iranians with Indonesians. The Indian Ocean serves as both a sea separating them and a bridge linking them together.

Throughout history, it took centuries for the habits of one culture to materially affect another. Now, that which becomes popular in one country can sweep through others within months.

The power which the Hellenes and even the Italians possessed, of civilizing and assimilating to themselves the nations susceptible of culture with whom they came into contact, was wholly wanting in the Phoenicians.

I never found it frustrating not speaking.

In England, we're around so much American culture and TV anyway, so it's an accent that's always in our ear.

The American movie, in part because America's a melting pot, the cultural hodgepodge that America makes, generates movies that have appeal across all international boundaries. And that's really not true for most domestic film industries. It's no longer true of France and Italy, less true than it used to be of the U.K.

I always was fascinated with China, because I was born in Europe, and for us, China had this fascination and mystery. The first time I came here was in 1989. They were on bicycles, and the speed of the growth has been incredible.

I don't believe that economic and cultural interaction automatically brings greater peace and understanding, although it may help in that regard.

Finally, I have to say that the most surprising aspect has been the speed at which the folks in India adapt to Western practices. They learn fast, really, really fast.

We also have a cultural phenomenon: the emergence of a global culture, or of cultural globalization.

The civilized world is far ahead of us. We have no choice but to catch up.

World history is the history of the great cultures.

The more diverse we are, the better off we are going to be in the global marketplace.

We live in a global society today where all our cultures intermingle.

Cultural exchange rarely takes place on equal terms.

Today, no country can ever truly cut itself off from the global media or from external sources of information. Trends that start in one corner of the world are rapidly replicated thousands of miles away.

I have no doubt that Japan will propagate to China and other countries in the Orient, whose standard of civilization is low, her new civilization, which is a product of harmonizing the Japanese and European civilizations. In a sense Japan may be said to have the mission of harmonizing Eastern and Western civilization and of propagating the new civilization; nay, I do not hesitate to declare that this is her mission

People and their cultures perish in isolation, but they are born and reborn in contact with other men and women, with man and woman or another culture, another creed, another race.

Russians would make charming visitors at New-Yorke, and civilize that part of America wonderfully.

Clash of civilizations

Most civilizational advancements occurred under empires.