Cultural Contribution Quotes

Poland is not East or West. Poland is at the center of European civilization. It has contributed mightily to that civilization. It is doing so today by being magnificently unreconciled to oppression.

Let us candidly admit that there are shameful blemishes on the American past, of which the worst by far is rum. Nevertheless, we have improved man's lot and enriched his civilization with rye, bourbon and the Martini cocktail. In all history has any other nation done so much?

Independent economists say immigration reform will grow our economy and shrink our deficits by almost $1 trillion in the next two decades. And for good reason: when people come here to fulfill their dreams - to study, invent, and contribute to our culture - they make our country a more attractive place for businesses to locate and create jobs for everyone. So let's get immigration reform done this year.

I suppose for me as an artist it wasn't always just about expressing my work; I really wanted, more than anything else, to contribute in some way to the culture that I was living in. It just seemed like a challenge to move it a little bit towards the way I thought it might be interesting to go.

The first among mankind will always be those who make something imperishable out of a sheet of paper, a canvas, a piece of marble, or a few sounds

Do be true to yourself, whether it's bad doesn't matter. The important thing - you have to copy while you're studying. And culture is - each of us - is like one pearl added to another to make a chain. We each contribute to the other. And that's all right. But once you're on your own, do that which comes from within. And I feel this very strongly.

...Any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

Artists have to be useful. They have to fill a role.

Whatever I do, I do for the universal. It's not like an individual thing; it's not like something from me. What I present to the people is for all of us, you know. I present music for the people.

Of all the small nations of this earth, perhaps only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind.

I'm no parasite. I'm a poet who will bring honor and glory to his country.

Our nation has been called a melting pot. I think of it more as a mosaic, one to which many groups make their own distinct contributions.

As a creative person, you just put something out into the consciousness of the society you live in.

Early Islam was a time of great creativity. Scholars excelled in sciences and literature. Our religion should not be a shield behind which we hide from the world but a driving force that inspires us to innovate and contribute to our surroundings. This is the true spirit of Islam.

Unless modern civilization is a failure, it is entirely feasible and practicable for two races in such essential political, economic and religious harmony as the white and colored people in America, to develop side by side in peace and mutual happiness, the peculiar contribution which each has to make to the culture of their common country.

I don't think that when Zionism began there was a claim that we were losing - even in part - our capacity to contribute to other peoples.

Posterity is something I'm a big fan of because that's how you leave your legacy. Not to sound pompous, but just to be truthful.

A poet is a good citizen turned inside out.

I brought the film like a flower to the world.

One of the things I'm going to say out there is how grateful I am - and how grateful the world is - for the tremendous gift of the black people, of jazz.

Like all her friends, I miss her greatly...But...I am sure there is no case for lamentation...Virginia Woolf got through an immense amount of work, she gave acute pleasure in new ways, she pushed the light of the English language a little further against darkness. Those are facts.

When you look at my father's works, he systematically dated everything. He also wanted to document what he knew would be the work of the century.

Lives there the man with soul so dead as to disown the wish to merit the people's applause, and having uttered words worthy to be kept in cedar oil to latest times, to leave behind him rhymes that dread neither herrings nor frankincense.

Sometimes I wish the public were equally aware of the men of our race in the cultural fields. You, for instance, have you ever bought a book by a Negro writer?

I have a thing: I will always put money in for any street musician anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world. It's like giving back the money I got.