Michael Palin Quotes

You need to figure out other societies, where they came from, what the people believe in, what they do, how their ethnic divisions work, which is often very different from our own; then design your policies around that. Pay attention. I think that's the simple answer, which is just to realize that not everybody is like the United States. Whether you study history or sociology, or anthropology, journalism, there's room for seeing there are other cultures and other ways and other structures.

The key to understanding any people is in its art: its writing, painting, sculpture.

But what I'm very interested in, whether it's writing, whether it's hosting a show, whether it's cooking food, I'm just into the discussions of identity, culture and the politics of culture.

Queen Victoria did not regard art, letters, or music as in any way springing from national character: they were something quite apart, elegant decorations resembling a scarf or a bracelet, and in no way expressive of the soul of the country.

Cinema is an art form that is designed to go across borders. And as a filmmaker, the only way I can direct a movie is when I feel close to my culture.

Some Russian ballet master woman said there's no culture in America, but if you look you can find interesting stuff in this country, don't you think?

Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit.

Every museum is full of nice things. That's the opposite of before. It was important things or serious things. Now we have interesting things.

In museums and palaces we are alternate radicals and conservatives.

The art of a people is a true mirror to their minds.

Our language, history, and civilization shine out across every continent.

The arts are so important not only to society but to ourselves as human beings. It keeps in touch with our own humanity. So access to the arts in any way, shape, or form is vital.

I'm with expanding in my culture, from the Dominican Republic all the way to Cape Verde. Please believe that.

I am extremely proud of my heritage, and I would never use being Dutch as an excuse but rather an explanation of our cultural differences.

Doing any kind of culture in America in which you are not trying to affirm a European aesthetic is war.

Culture is a part of basic human nature, of deep humanity.

All culture, all important culture, is always linked to how people express and experience being alive.

Multiculturalism has seemed to imply, wrongly for me, let other cultures be allowed to express themselves but do not let the majority culture at all tell us its glories, its struggles, its joys, its pains.

The arts have long been an integral and vibrant part of our nation's cultural heritage. In its many forms, art enables us to gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and of our society. Providing us with a unique way to learn about people of other cultures, it allows us to discover all that we have in common. At its best, art can beautify our cities, encourage economic development and social change, and profoundly affect the ways we live our lives.

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.

Visual presentation of our heritage in glass is needed.

I kept on trying to use so many media and ideas in my work because our horizon is so vast and Indian culture is so rich that I think what we are today, culturally, we have a unique position and I don't think one lifetime is enough to encompass it.

The fact that that's the difference between Mexicans and Cubans is pronounced. It's so immediately recognizable, the way a Cuban speaks, the way a Cuban moves the hands.

Culture is the air we breathe all around us.

Humanity is the rich effluvium, it is the waste and the manure and the soil, and from it grows the tree of the arts.