Martin Jacques Quotes

Chinese society is organised around the family unit.

Japan is not a Western democracy. The Japanese have kept their traditions, culture and heritage, but they have joined the community of free nations.

There's nothing universal about Indian families except that the family itself is deeply important across the country. It's sort of the fabric and anchor of our country.

Because of the Chinese culture of obedience, you don't ask questions... You follow and obey.

In a rural society communities are "given" for the individual. Community is a fact, whether family or religion, social class or caste.

Chinese culture in general is not very religious. Confucianism is more a code of ethics than a religion, and ancestor worship is a way for parents to control you even after they're dead.

The concept of the strong linkage to the family is breaking down in Western nations.

I'm considered homophobic and crazy about these things and old fashioned. But I think that the family - father, mother, children - is fundamental to our civilisation.

A person can be big, because of spirit. A person can be big because of their position in the family, the hierarchy in the family. That role has been played by women who are quite thin.

The root of the kingdom is in the state. The root of the state is in the family. The root of the family is in the person of its head.

We were the outliers: my mother was the only Western woman (khawagayya, in Egyptian Arabic) to have married into the family, and during my childhood, we were the only members living outside of Egypt. So between my father's prestige as the eldest son and my own exotic pedigree, I basked in the spotlight.

How rich our German life is compared to France or England: what an abundance of social types and customs with completely different origins... Germany is a world, whereas England and France, with their stereotypically divided three social classes, are but enlarged villages... what a stage for a Balzac.

I woke up one morning thinking about wolves and realized that wolf packs function as families. Everyone has a role, and if you act within the parameters of your role, the whole pack succeeds, and when that falls apart, so does the pack.

The Chinese began with the assumption that the group is the fundamental unit of reality. Individuals? Sure, we can factor them out from their groups, but let us not think that they as individuals have any viability apart from their group.

The institution of marriage holds society together. We can't replace the family.

The clan is nothing more than a larger family, with its patriarchal chief as the natural head, and the union of several clans by intermarriage and voluntary connection constitutes the tribe.

You can't have a limited government if the family breaks down.

My father was the center of the family, and everyone tried to please him.

China no longer has an ideology that makes any sense to them, but what they do have is great pride in the Chinese nation.

I am an American, steeped in American values. But I know on an emotional level what it means to be of the Chinese culture.

Because it's not only that a child is inseparable from the family in which he lives, but that the lives of families are determined by the community in which they live and the cultural tradition from which they come.

No matter what town you are in, there is some social order and a different yardstick to chart. In New York, people create things like schools and speaking languages and second homes.

The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition on a pedestal. It expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values.

I believe in the natural order where the man works and the woman stays home and raises the kids. It's what the people want and what they will get if I'm elected governor.

The family is the most important unit of society…. When all is said and done, there is nothing more important than the family.