Cultural Enrichment Quotes

Art is the nearest thing to life; it is a mode of amplifying experience and extending our contact with our fellow men beyond the bounds of our personal lot.

One ought, everyday, to hear a song, read a fine poem, and, if possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

Civilization is social order promoting cultural creation. Four elements constitute it: economic provision, political organization, moral tradition, and the pursuit of knowledge and the arts. It begins where chaos and insecurity end. For when fear is overcome, curiosity and constructiveness are free, and man passes by natural impulse towards the understanding and embellishment of life.

Reading is the royal road to intellectual eminence...Truly good books are more than mines to those who can understand them. They are the breathings of the great souls of past times. Genius is not embalmed in them, but lives in them perpetually.

Civilization is an active deposit which is formed by the combustion of the Present with the Past. Neither in countries without a Present nor in those without a Past is it to be encountered. Proust in Venice, Matisse's birdcages overlooking the flower market at Nice, Gide on the seventeenth-century quais of Toulon, Lorca in Granada, Picasso by Saint-Germain-des-Prés: there lies civilization and for me it can exist only under those liberal regimes in which the Present is alive and therefore capable of assimilating the Past.

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable.

People take pride in being Irish-American and Italian-American. They have a particular culture that infuses the whole culture and makes it richer and more interesting. I think if we can expand that attitude to embrace African-Americans and Latino-Americans and Asian-Americans, then we will be in a position where all our kids can feel comfortable with the worlds they are coming out of, knowing they are part of something larger.

Let us describe the education of our men. What then is the education to be? Perhaps we could hardly find a better than that which the experience of the past has already discovered, which consists, I believe, in gymnastic, for the body, and music for the mind.

For me, literacy means freedom. For the individual and for society.

If we expose kids to books and art, nothing but good can come from it.

The idea is to bring art to people who might never really interact with it. It's for all citizens, and it's about making the city more interesting and more visually significant.

Poetry and art and knowledge are sacred and pure.

The arts shows that you're civilized, and it makes life sweet. So you can exist and you can buy more things and you can be more - we're dealing with a form of commercialism that obscures a prior relationship to quality, and it's a national problem.

Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them....I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon's teeth and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men.

I do think music and the arts are imperative for our kids for their creative learning and their emotional education, which breeds better adults. I'm doing what I can to try and pick up the slack and I applaud anyone who tries to give back to their community.

Canada's eminent position today is a tribute to the patience, tolerance, and strength of character of her people, of both French and British strains. For Canada is enriched by the heritage of France as well as of Britain, and Quebec has imparted the vitality and spirit of France itself to Canada. Canada's notable achievement of national unity and progress through accommodation, moderation and forbearance can be studied with profit by her sister nations.

Language forms a kind of wealth, which all can make use of at once without causing any diminution of the store, and which thus admits a complete community of enjoyment; for all, freely participating in the general treasure, unconsciously aid in its preservation.

Art is about trying to find the good in people, and making the world a more compassionate place.

When I was a child, when I was an adolescent, books saved me from despair: that convinced me that culture was the highest of values[...].

There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.

'Tis a good rule in every journey to provide some piece of liberal study to rescue the hours which bad weather, bad company, and taverns steal from the best economist.

You cannot go wrong by learning classical music because it trains the ear.

He who has a garden and a library wants for nothing.

For God’s sake, let us be men not monkeys minding machines or sitting with our tails curled while the machine amuses us, the radio or film or gramophone. Monkeys with a bland grin on our faces.

Migrants make huge contributions to both their host countries and countries of origin. They take jobs that local workforces cannot fill, boosting economic activity. Many are innovators and entrepreneurs.