Hugh Mackay Quotes

On my parents' scale of values, the more Western something was, the more cultured it was considered.

There's no such thing as a good or bad culture, it's either a strong or weak culture. And a good culture for somebody else may not be a good culture for you.

The universality of a custom is pledge of its worth.

If someone were to put a proposition before men bidding them choose, after examination, the best customs in the world, each nation would certainly select its own.

Cultural comparisons are good because they can tell you about what's similar, but also sometimes they make it easier to see obvious differences.

There are thus great swathes of the past where understanding is more important and reputable than judgement, because the principal actors performed in line with the ideas and values of that time, not of ours.

I don't really have an issue with showing certain parts of my body. I'd rather not, but it's not a big deal. Growing up in Sweden, it's natural over there.

Humor has historically been tied to the mores of the day. The Yellow Kid was predicated on what people thought was funny about the immigrant Irish. When you're different in a society, you're funny.

Culture is not a biologically transmitted complex.

Culture is the air we breathe all around us.

You know, our sense of individuality is just the number one target of civilization.

I think 'tradition' is in the past - and how can someone really 'fear' a color? A man may prefer navy to turquoise, but a self assured man could wear any color and he knows that. It's a distinction of confidence.

Conventional manners are a kind of literacy test for the alien who comes among us.

I grew up in a very westernised environment and went to a private American school. But my personality was shy and quiet, and I wanted to wear the hijab but didn't have the courage, as I knew my friends would talk me out of it.

What is sacred among one people may be ridiculous in another; and what is despised or rejected by one cultural group, may in a different environment become the cornerstone for a great edifice of strange grandeur and beauty.

Culture is more important than politics.

There is no fundamental difference in the ways of thinking of primitive and civilized man. A close connection between race and personality has never been established.

Custom is our nature …

In America there is not one single element of civilization that is not made to depend, in the end, upon public opinion.

Culture is more important than politics and government.

There are all these languages that keep people in place that conform us to a set of terms. It's why I think the whole idea of identity as something that is something of a straitjacket. That most of us like to think of as natural and innate. That we just find and go, 'Yeah, that's who I am.'

Culture has no logic.

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

There's a cultural difference between India and the rest of the world.

Different cultures produce a different 'cool.' And your perception of 'cool' changes depending on where you are.