Norman Davies Quotes

I just think that some version of the past in our culture is going to rise up and become dominant.

The younger generation of filmmakers is concerned about our roots, rather than making films with characters plucked out of the cloud or some English DVD. Actually since 2000, Tamil cinema is going through some positive changes.

Today, nobody cares about European culture. We have a tradition, a vision, a culture of the past, we have legacy, but we don't have a present culture and we don't have a future.

If we are to reclaim our culture, we cannot afford narrow definitions.

There is a mandate to impose a voluntary return to traditional values.

The arts are very alive in Ireland, so that had its influence on me. But I consider myself European, really.

I have become aware on my travels that when a country loses the connection between its history and its traditional dress, something truly precious is lost.

It takes a strong effort on the part of each American Indian not to become Europeanized. The strength for this effort can only come from the traditional ways, the traditional values that our elders retain.

I have a European frame of mind and Europe is my home.

No, I'm not a French designer either. I'm from nowhere. I'm a European, old European is all I am.

Cinema should always be in touch with the soil of the country. My films celebrate the heartland of India.

The disintegration of the culture starts with the artist. I'm on a crusade to turn the tide in the arts, to restore dignity to the arts and, by extension, to the culture.

For members of a traditional society where many traditions have been discredited, an interest in modernity can result in a restless sophistication. Mehmet Ertegun seems not to have been a restless man.

Well, one hopes that if you're really related to the core of your particular culture, you have profound commitments to it, and that you are aware of how much you can strain it before you do violence to its essential nature.

I have encountered on this long road an enthusiasm for an Irishness which will be built on recognising again those sources from which spring the best of our reason and curiosity.

I want to tell stories about Europe - I feel profoundly European, I don't feel like an American.

There goes traditional America.

I live in Paris but I feel I am a daughter of Europe.

The conservative is the one who understands his own society from within and loves and defends it.

Civilisations which get cut off from their traditions and values do not survive for long.

We have to preserve folk in its authenticity. Else folk will become fake.

I do think evolution is an important aspect of keeping a tradition alive. If it freezes and remains very static in its form, it dies, and so a natural evolution has to occur.

Niaqornat particularly seemed to offer a heightened version of a story being played out across the world about traditional communities' struggle for survival and their attempts to renegotiate their identity in the face of modern life.

For the first time since I began acting, I feel that I've found my place in the world, that there's something out of my own culture which i can express and perhaps help others preserve..i have found out now that the African natives had a definite culture a long way beyond the culture of the Stone age...an integrated thing, which is still unspoiled by western influences...I think the Americans will be amazed to find how many of the modern dance steps are relics of African heritage.

Every people, in order to remain healthy and strong, has to have a grasp of its foundation story. Culture is a chrysalis - it is protective, it takes care of you. That's what cultures are for. You cannot rob a people of language, culture, mother, father, the value of their labor - all of that - without doing vast damage to those people.