Profoundly inspirational culture quotes will brighten up your day and make you feel ready to take on anything.
Famous Culture Quotes
The crucial differences which distinguish human societies and human beings are not biological. They are cultural. Ruth Benedict
Culture is to recruiting as product is to marketing.
Culture is not made up but something that evolves which is human. Edward T. Hall
Culture is simply a shared way of doing something with a passion.
Cultural differences should not separate us from each other, but rather cultural diversity brings a collective strength that can benefit all of humanity. Robert Alan
The most robust, sustainable cultures are those based on action, not words. Ben Horowitz
No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive. Mahatma Gandhi
Our work has to represent our passion, our desire to contribute to our culture, especially to the development of others. Phil Jackson
Culture is the bedrock, the final wall, against which one leans one’s back in a godforsaken chaos. J.C. Powys, The Meaning of Culture
So Goes the Culture, So Goes the Company. Simon Sinek
The triumph of culture is to overpower nationality. Ralph Waldo Emerson
i came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game, it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value. Louis Gerstner
Our cultural diversity has most certainly shaped our national character. Julie Bishop
Integrity, honesty, and decency are long term cultural investments. Ben Horowitz
The role of culture is that it’s the form through which we as a society reflect on who we are, where we’ve been, where we hope to be. Wendell Pierce
Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they understand each other better in their soul, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbor is, in the end, just like them, with the same problems, the same questions. Paulo Coelho
A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people. Mahatma Gandhi
The best organizations have strong cultures and shared values, understand the importance of teamwork, create trust among their members, maintain focus, and, most importantly, understand the importance of people and relationships to their mission success. Simon Sinek
If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. John F. Kennedy
Culture is not like a mission statement; you can’t just set it up and have it last forever. There’s a saying in the military that if you see something below standard and do nothing, then you’ve set a new standard. This is also true of culture if you see something off culture and ignore it, you’ve created a new culture. Ben Horowitz
You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. Ray Bradbury
A hallmark of a healthy creative culture is that its people feel free to share ideas, opinions, and criticisms. Lack of candor, if unchecked, ultimately leads to dysfunctional environments. Ed Catmull
Piety is not a goal but a means to attain through the purest peace of mind the highest culture. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Because your culture is how your company makes decisions when you’re not there. It’s the set of assumptions your employees use to resolve the problems they face every day. It’s how they behave when no one is looking. If you don’t methodically set your culture, then two thirds of it will end up being accidental, and the rest will be a mistake. Ben Horowitz
Every man’s ability may be strengthened or increased by culture. John Abbot
In determining the right people, the good to great companies placed greater weight on character attributes than on specific educational background, practical skills, specialized knowledge, or work experience. Jim Collins
The wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men. John F. Kennedy
An organization is a machine consisting of two major parts: culture and people. Each influences the other, because the people who make up an organization determine the kind of culture it has, and the culture of the organization determines the kinds of people who fit in. Ray Dalio
Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit. Jawaharlal Nehru
Culture clearly has a powerful effect. So how do you shape it, how do you set it deep in people’s minds, and how do you fix it when it goes wrong? Ben Horowitz
Culture is a way of coping with the world by defining it in detail. Malcolm Bradbury
Team cultures reveal themselves, and most of the time they don’t deviate too far from the national or local ones. Fergus Connelly
To merely observe your culture without contributing to it seems very close to existing as a ghost. Chuck Palahniuk
Real courage is seeing the truth and speaking the truth to each other. People never want to be the person who says, ‘Wait a second, what’s really going on here?’ But inside the squadron, that is the culture, and that’s why we’re successful.
That is true culture which helps us to work for the social betterment of all. Henry Ward Beecher
Culture isn’t a magical set of rules that makes everyone behave the way you’d like. It’s a system of behaviors that you hope most people will follow, most of the time. Ben Horowitz
Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle.This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future. Albert Camus
And sometimes you have to break a core principle of your culture to survive. Culture is crucial, but if the company fails because you insist on cultural purity, you’re doing it wrong. Ben Horowitz
In an immature society culture is an import; for a mature one it is a native manufacture which eventually becomes an export. Northrop Frye
In the cultures I visited, I didn’t see many feedback sandwiches. Instead, I saw them separate the two into different processes. They handled negatives through dialogue, first by asking if a person wants feedback, then having a learning focused two way conversation about the needed growth. They handled positives through ultraclear bursts of recognition and praise. Dan Coyle
It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious. Henry David Thoreau
Building a great culture means adapting it to circumstances. Ben Horowitz
A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots. Marcus Garvey
Walk the Talk No culture can flourish without the enthusiastic participation of its leader. No matter how well designed, carefully programmed, and insistently enforced your cultural elements are, inconsistent or hypocritical behavior by the person in charge will blow the whole thing up. Ben Horowitz
Real cultural diversity results from the interchange of ideas, products, and influences, not from the insular development of a single national style. Tyler Cowan
Whether your company is a startup or a hundred years old, designing your culture is always relevant. Cultures, like the organizations that create them, must evolve to meet new challenges. The point is not to be perfect, just better than you were yesterday. While you can draw inspiration from other cultures, don’t try to adapt to another organization’s ways. For your culture to be vibrant and sustainable, it must come from the blood, from the soul. Ben Horowitz
Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they understand each other better in their soul, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbor is, in the end, just like them, with the same problems, the same questions. Paulo Coelho
We live in a culture that celebrates fifteen minutes of fame, but god honors a lifetime of faithfulness. The longer I live, the more I believe in long obedience in the same direction. Mark Batterson
No people come into possession of a culture without having paid a heavy price for it. James Baldwin
Successful cultures are organic and adaptive, they change and flow, yet always just under the surface is a bedrock of values, smoothed by the current above, but unyielding. James Kerr
No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden. Thomas Jefferson
People become the culture they live in and do what they have to do to survive and thrive. Ben Horowitz
Periodically, I return to the classics for inspiration and refreshment. Cecilia Dart Thornton
Create Safe, Collision Rich Spaces: The cultures I visited were uniformly obsessed with design as a lever for cohesion and interaction. Dan Coyle
Preservation of one’s own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures. Cesar Chavez
If you can surround a person with a new culture, a different web of relationships, then they will absorb new habits of thought and behaviors in ways you will never be able to measure or understand. David Brooks
Piety is not a goal but a means to attain through the purest peace of mind the highest culture. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Each virtue was carefully defined and then reinforced through a set of principles, practices, and stories. They all worked together as a system, balancing one another in a way that made it very difficult for any individual virtue to be misunderstood or misused. Ben Horowitz
Popular culture has become engorged, broadening and thickening until it’s the only culture anyone notices. P.J. O’Rourke
Culturally, what you believe means nearly nothing. What you do is who you are. Even the samurai oath is oriented toward action: I will never fall behind others in pursuing the way of the warrior. I will always be ready to serve my lord. I will honor my parents. I will serve compassionately for the benefit of others. Ben Horowitz
Popular culture is a place where pity is called compassion, flattery is called love, propaganda is called knowledge, tension is called peace, gossip is called news, and auto tune is called singing. Criss Jami, Killosophy
Creating engagement around a clear, simple set of priorities can function as a lighthouse, orienting behavior and providing a path toward a goal. Dan Coyle
It’s part of our pop culture to give animals human personalities and talents. Neil Degrasse Tyson
Cultural design is a way to program the actions of an organization, but, like computer programs, every culture has bugs.
Popular culture is a contradiction in terms. If it’s popular, it’s not culture. Vivienne Westwood
That’s the nature of culture. It’s not a single decision it’s a code that manifests itself as a vast set of actions taken over time. Ben Horowitz
All I’ve ever wanted to do is move the needle on popular culture. Jimmy Iovine
Cultures are shaped more by the invisible than the visible. They are willed. Ben Horowitz
People constantly make pop culture references. That’s why it’s called popular culture, because people are aware of it and reference it constantly. Seth Rogen
People who live in trusting cultures form more community organizations. People in more trusting cultures have wider stock market participation rates. People in trusting cultures find it easier to organize and operate large corporations. Trust creates wealth. David Brooks
Jazz is not popular culture. Jazz is in the same position in our culture as classical music. A very small minority of people really love it. John Corigliano
A culture is a set of actions. By requiring thoughtful action before every meeting, Amazon moves its culture in the right direction every day. Ben Horowitz
The concept that an artist would be revered by popular culture is an immediate dismissal of his relevance as an artist. Thomas Kinkaide