Sydney Smith Quotes

I respect the British a lot - their history, their past, their culture. I think it's beautiful, what they have with the monarchy.

We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.

A language is a more ancient and inevitable thing than any state.

I was brought up in Britain, and I'm very proud of my Britishness and my culture.

Humor was not important only for me, humor was important for this nation for centuries, to survive, you know.

The greatest guarantee for the preservation of a person’s identity is language and faith, and all Armenians must carry these two values.

Ceremony and ritual are like a warm, fuzzy coat to the Brits. It feels good to put it on.

I always had my roots in the past.

I'm sticking true to my roots.

People love culture and authenticity.

Culture is a reflection of values.

Music is part of our culture.

I've always been passionate about England.

Food is about agriculture, about ecology, about man's relationship with nature, about the climate, about nation-building, cultural struggles, friends and enemies, alliances, wars, religion. It is about memory and tradition and, at times, even about sex.

...a nation could change its way of life, its history, its technology, its art, literature, and culture, but it would never have a real chance to change its gestures.

Most of the wonderful places in the world were not made by architects but by the people.

Stories about food are stories about us-our history and our values.

We're all where we come from. We all have our roots.

In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars.

History is the key to citizenship.

No doubt soaring cathedrals, stirring music, moving stories and parables, help a bit. But by far the most important variable determining your religion is the accident of birth.

These issues that exist among people that we are Iranian and what we need to do for Iran are not correct; these issues are not correct. This issue, which is perhaps being discussed everywhere, regarding paying attention to nation and nationality is nonsense in Islam and is against Islam. One of the things that the designers of Imperialism and their agents have promoted is the idea of nation and nationality.

My birthplace was California, but I couldn't forget Armenia, so what is one's country? Is it land of the earth, in a specific place? Rivers there? Lakes? The sky there? The way the moon comes up there? And the sun? Is one's country the trees, the vineyards, the grass, the birds, the rocks, the hills and summer and winter? Is it the animal rhythm of the living there? The huts and houses, the streets of cities, the tables and chairs, and the drinking of tea and talking? Is it the peach ripening in summer heat on the bough? Is it the dead in the earth there?

I know that everything essential and great originated from the fact that the human being had a homeland and was rooted in tradition.

Fermentation and civilization are inseparable.