My tendency to idealize Western civilization arises from my nationalistic desire to use the West in order to reform China. But this has led me to overlook the flaws of Western culture.
Some of the [Indian] national [sanitation] habits are beyond description, and yet so ingrained as to defy all human effort [to reform.]
The U.S. needs to do more than change presidents. It needs to change its political culture.
The most important thing... was to change their spirit; and since at that time I felt that literature was the best means to this end, I decided to promote literary movement.
You can’t have people curating culture in this way when we need to see things in order to reform from them.
Oh, we want a new breed of men before India can be cleansed of her disease.
The main thing is that Ataturk saw the desperate condition of the countries that had not had an industrial revolution. Ataturk saw where history was going. He really did in Turkey what we are all hoping somebody will do in [Islamic] countries where fundamentalists thrive, that they get somebody today that has the vision that Ataturk had in 1915.
Neither one of us believe that you can fix the culture from within by just throwing money and people at the system. There has to be a systemic change within the system.
It is significant that whenever the public mind is to be diverted from great social wrong, a crusade is inaugurated against indecency.
We should be respectful but we must also have the courage to stop harmful practices that impoverish girls, women and their communities.
... the modern drama, operating through the double channel of dramatist and interpreter, affecting as it does both mind and heart,is the strongest force in developing social discontent, swelling the powerful tide of unrest that sweeps onward and over the dam of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition.
I would change policy, bring back natural grass and nickel beer. Baseball is the belly-button of our society. Straighten out baseball, and you straighten out the rest of the world.
The Islamic world is obsessed with the notion of strong leaders. This is a mistake. We don't need powerful leaders, but rather unconventional, progressive thinkers with the courage to open our minds.
I am well aware that, if my endorsement is meaningful and helpful to Huckabee, it is because my father devoted so much of his life and ministry to cultural reform.
Each civilization has its own kind of pestilence and can control it only by reforming itself.
The cultural issues, I think, at Wells Fargo went very, very deep. They have to unwind these cultural issues.
Now more than ever the world has to come together to make changes. Just because certain cultures have had long-standing traditions does not mean that in today's world they are acceptable any longer. The world and the environment are evolving and that means we must change our ways as human beings as well.
If I were a dictator I should make it compulsory for every member of the population between the ages of four and eighty to listen to Mozart for at least a quarter of an hour daily for the coming five years.
Theater, art, literature, cinema, press, posters, and window displays must be cleansed of all manifestations of our rotting world and placed in the service of a moral, political, and cultural idea.
I have to be honest with you. Islam is on very thin ice with me... Through our screaming self-pity and our conspicuous silences, we Muslims are conspiring against ourselves. We're in crisis and we're dragging the rest of the world with us. If ever there was a moment for an Islamic reformation, it's now. For the love of God, what are we doing about it?
You can overcome wrong technology. Your people have the initiative, they see the problem, no big deal ... you can't overcome bad culture. You've gotta change whoever is in charge.
Ram Mohan Roy would have been a greater reformer and Lokmanya Tilak a greater scholar if they had not to start with the handicap of having to think in English and transmit their thoughts chiefly in English.
I articulate the deepest need of the Filipino people, which is reform of a corrupt culture.
Village reform is not merely cleaning the roads, constructing schools and worshipping monasteries. It is not mere celebration of festivals.
We are trying to remake Vietnamese society, a task which certainly cannot be accomplished by force and which probably cannot be accomplished by any means available to outsiders.
