Quote Cultures

In the midst of gathering cross-cultural skills abroad, I realized how I sometimes need a little extra push - words or meaning - to express what I’m experiencing. Whenever in need, I feel sayings and quotes often resonate well as they provide me with interesting bits of information on cultural values. To me (and many, many others, considering the number of quote pages on the Internet) this is good fun, always worth a thought or two, and very often just the little push I need.

I love to see how quotes and sayings are always uniquely expressed in different cultures, while at the same time their values are often universal. At least they’re worth the share, which is why I started to share interesting cultural quotes on twitter every other day.

On this page you will find some of my personal favourites. The list - as it grows - I hope is worth coming back to on different occasions. I find their meaning - and their little push - changes with what you’re busy doing now. Sounds familiar?

My favourite cultural quotes and sayings:

• “Don't be proud, everything ends.” (Bolivia)
• “No bad thing can last a hundred years.” (Bolivia)
• “If you have a tail of straw, keep away from the fire.” (Argentina)
• “A dog that barks all the time gets little attention.” (Argentina)
• “Little by little people walk far.” (Peru)
• “A wise man sits on the hole in his carpet.” (Peru)
• “Get up! The sun rises for everybody.” (Chile)
• “Life is so short, shouldn't we meet again?” (Chile)
• “Keep your eyes on the sun and the shadow will fall behind you.” (New Zealand)
• “When the belly is full, the talk is good.” (New Zealand)
• “The more you know the less you need.” (Australia)
• “Those who lose dreaming are lost.” (Australia)
• “Life is so short we must move very slowly.” (Thailand)
• “At high tide the fish eat ants, at low tide the ants eat fish.” (Thailand)
• “Don't let an angry man wash dishes; don't let a hungry man guard rice.” (Cambodia)
• “Forgetting the cow, when going out to plough.” (Burma)
• “If you truly want honesty, don't ask questions you don't really want the answer to.” (Burma)
• “Less talk, less enemies.” (Burma)
• “Rather once cry your heart out than always sigh.” (China)
• “Make happy those who are near, and those who are far will come.” (China)
• “Peace only comes when reason rules.” (China)
• “Don’t stand by the water and long for fish; go home and weave a net.” (China)
• “One who doesn't know how to dance says the floor is crooked.” (Nepal)
• “To take revenge on an enemy, give him an elephant. First he must thank you and then the elephant's appetite will deplete your enemy's resources.” (Nepal)
• “Round eggs can be made square according to how you cut it; words would be harsh according to how you speak them.” (Japan)
• “We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.” (Japan)
• “When the buffaloes fight it is the grass that suffers.” (Laos)
• “If you like things easy, you'll have difficulties; if you like problems, you'll succeed.” (Laos)

My favourite quotes on culture:

• “Culture is a little like dropping an Alka-Seltzer into a glass. You don’t see it, but somehow it does something.” (Hans Magnus Enzensberger)
• “Culture is like wealth; it makes us more ourselves and it enables us to express ourselves.” (Philip Gilbert Hamerton)
• “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” (George Bernard Shaw)
• “Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have travelled.” (Mohammed)
• “Landscape shapes culture.” (Terry Tempest Williams)
• “No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive.” (Mahatma Gandhi)
• “Two half-truths do not make a truth, and two half- cultures do not make a culture.” (Arthur Koestler)
• “Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?” (Ernest Gaines)

If you like to contribute to the list, feel free to comment.