Cultural Fragility Quotes

I've learned you can't take any steps to protect any art. It is so vulnerable.

Our humanity rests upon a series of learned behaviors, woven together into patterns that are infinitely fragile and never directly inherited.

Many do not understand how precarious Western civilization is and what a joy it is. From it, we get real democracy. From it, we get the sort of intellectual tolerance that allows me to propound something that may be completely alien to you.

Americans' great and secret fear is that America may turn out to be a phenomenon rather than a civilization.

People who put Europe in the center of the universe, they're very fragile.

The culture will not be able to persist in light of the rigid systems of its own innocence.

Canadians are so easily wounded.

Cultures that may seem as durable as stone can break like glass, leaving all the things that held them together unattended. I believe that the craftsman, the artist, the cook, and the silversmith are peacemakers. They instill grace; they lull the world to calm.

History and geology show what an eyeblink it's been since our current, comfortable culture came about. And yet that culture is using up absolutely everything at a ferocious rate.