Robert Bly Quotes

We have taken so much from your culture, I wish you had taken something from ours...For there were some beautiful and good things within it. Perhaps now that the time has come, We are fearful that what you take will be lost.... I shall grab the instruments of the white man's success: His education, his skills, and society.

Throughout history, it took centuries for the habits of one culture to materially affect another. Now, that which becomes popular in one country can sweep through others within months.

I love having different cultures around, but when the parent culture kind of dissipates, you're left thinking, 'Well, what's going on?'

There aren't any looks or customs I wish would come back. Today almost anything goes. Culture constantly devours the past so there's not much that's missing.

Civilisation has ever accompanied emigration and conquest - the conflict of opinion, of religion, or of race.

I don't think the distinction between high and low culture exists anymore.

It would be a sad day for India if it has to inherit the English scale and the English tastes so utterly unsuitable to the Indian environment.

The culture of Saudi Arabia belongs to a past age. It is not appropriate for the age of globalization.

There must be in their [the Indian's] social bond, something singularly captivating, and far superior to anything to be boasted among us; for thousands of Europeans are Indians, and we have no examples of even one of those Aborigines having from choice become Europeans.

The customs of the [Khmer] barbarians are so different from our own that even if we were to capture all their territory, it would not be certain that we could change them.

We are living in the jet-age, but we are governed by an Edwardian establishment mentality.

The world changes fast, and a lot of the old country folks have a hard time keeping up with it, and it makes them sad.

When cultural movements happen, it's so beyond your control.

The Western world is having an identity crisis.

The mutating virus of multiculturalism has escaped its breeding ground in elite universities and is now running rampant across popular culture, entertainment, and politics.

My grandparents bowed to the Americans and sought to learn from them. My parents sought to be them.

Yoga is not Indian; it does not belong to India.

I'm like, 'Wow, I guess a lot of people didn't have this type of upbringing'... that old world technique of, you know, nothing's given to you, you've gotta work for everything you've done... It's just different from what I'm seeing today.

I'm conscious of the fact that I'm sort of a bridging figure. I have my Chinese literary heritage and cultural background, so I'm comfortable with these things, but at the same time, I have to navigate the Anglo-American tradition, which has a self-centred view of what Asia and what being Chinese means.

Even if Pearl S. Buck hadn't spent most of her life in China, she'd have every right to write about it.

Coming from a different perspective on a society is really interesting. I love the Paul Thomas Anderson's 'Phantom Thread,' and that's a version of Britishness and Englishness made by an American.

I think pop culture has always influenced society.

Culture is not a matter of a change of climate.

I think we're at a really rich and fertile time in the zeitgeist about paying attention to diversity of all kinds - racial diversity, gender diversity, making room for a continuum that is more inclusive.

You are an analog girl, living in a digital world.