Culture and Identity - Some favourite quotes

I am resharing some of my favourite quotes which pertain to culture and identity. These two concepts are important to all and perhaps especially to those who identify as Third Culture Kids (TCKs). These quotes were previously posted on my November 2018 post, Culture and Identity.

“When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don't just turn it off one day.”

~ Chinua Achebe

“It is my fate to wander from place to place, and to adapt to new soils. I believe I will be able to do that because handfuls of Chilean soil are caught in my roots; I carry them with me always.”

~ Isabel Allende

“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”

~ Maya Angelou

“Culture is a way of coping with the world by defining it in detail.”

~ Malcolm Bradbury

“Preservation of one's own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.”

~ Cesar Chavez

"The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them."

~ Paulo Coelho

“A nation's culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

“A person without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”

~ Marcus Garvey

“Cultures grow on the vine of tradition.”

~ Jonah Goldberg

“Traditions are the guideposts driven deep in our subconscious minds. The most powerful ones are those we can't even describe, aren't even aware of.”

~ Ellen Goodman

“It is critically important that we turn our transmitters off, and turn our receivers on to better understand different cultures.”

~ Chuck Hagel

"Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself."

~ Mohsin Hamid

"The very notion of home is foreign to me as the state of foreignness is the closest thing I know to home”

~ Pico Iyer

“The place to which you feel the strongest attachment isn’t necessarily the country you’re tied to by blood or birth: it’s the place that allows you to become yourself. This place may not lie on any map.”

~ Jhumpa Lahiri

“When you learn something from people, or from a culture, you accept it as a gift, and it is your lifelong commitment to preserve it and build on it.”

~ Yo-Yo Ma

“Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit.” ~ Jawaharlal Nehru

“People living amongst multiple cultures often have to process a wider variety of beliefs, values, and opinions in order to form their own view of the world.”

~ Christopher O'Shaughnessy

To merely observe your culture without contributing to it seems very close to existing as a ghost.”

~ Chuck Palahniuk

“The TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar experience”

~ David Pollock

“The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence.”

~ Rabindranath Tagore

Do these quotes resonate?