Cultural Uniqueness Quotes

The most American thing in America

We strain to tell Americans and aliens in this country that there's nothing unique about America, nothing unique about American civilization, nothing that requires their allegiance, nothing of great value that they should sacrifice for.

In fiction you're not often writing about the typical; you are interested in outliers, the points of interest. Part of it comes from feeling I was the only Asian or person of colour... another part comes from my personality: I'm an introvert, and my usual survival mode in a large group is to stand by a wall and watch everybody.

American exceptionalism is the recurring character in the nation's narrative.

There is a Canadian culture that is in some ways unique to Canada, but I don't think Canadian culture coincides neatly with borders.

In terms of the culture, you can't beat Japan. It's my favourite country. It's one of those places you never want to leave. I love the people, I love the food, and I love their fashion because they're not afraid to experiment.

There is a view of Russian exceptionalism, that they are a unique civilisation, a view right since Ivan the Terrible that Russia is a special civilisation with a special culture. Putin is pushing that now.

We Scots have a fierce pride in the things we do that others can never appreciate. I am the British No. 1, but I would prefer to be the British No. 1 from Scotland every time.

I think we should appreciate ethnicity and diversity, and appreciate the uniqueness of all people, but I don't think we should be ethnocentric. These things are not ultimate.

We need to preserve our cultural peculiarities; however, going to the extreme would lead to cultural isolation

The thing that interests me most about Scotland is how we differ from our neighbours. How do our ambitions differ? What kind of society are we? What can we learn from the mistakes of the past, and how do we position ourselves in the world?

A community having the breadth and scope of a people still cannot claim to be an ethnic community unless and until there emerges from its mentality a distinctive culture particularized by the community's special character.

All the rest of the world uses the word electricity. They've borrowed the word from English. But we Chinese have our own word for it!

The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.

All nations have present, or past, or future reasons for thinking themselves incomparable.

Cinematically, anything like 'Khawto' in Bengali cinema hasn't happened. Yes, you get such films in Hollywood, a few in Bombay. In Bengali literature, you get such stories in the works of Samaresh Basu and Buddhadeb Guha.

I grew up partially around Stone Mountain, Georgia, and in that part of the country, there was always this aura of mythology and palpable sense of otherness about being a Southerner.

What sets worlds in motion is the interplay of differences, their attractions and repulsions. Life is plurality, death is uniformity. By suppressing differences and pecularities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death. The ideal of a single civilization for everyone, implicit in the cult of progress and technique, impoverishes and mutilates us. Every view of the world that becomes extinct, every culture that disappears, diminishes a possibility of life

I feel like we [americans] are a unique nation in this world, in that we are able to implement great change in our society over a relatively short period of time. What takes centuries in Europe, we accomplish in a generation.

Harlem is a stage. It's like its own planet, from the way we dress to the swag in the way we walk and talk.

The more English is heard in the world, the more gratifying it seems to speak French, and above all to know the culture of our country. They find a kind of French social grace in the language and culture.

Staten Island is set off completely by itself in its own world, and that's one of the fascinating things about it, dramatically.

Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English.

Each nation grows after its own genius, and has a civilization of its own.

The more I go to Australia, the more I realise how enormous the country is and how much there is to see. There's really nowhere like it.