Culture is the endeavour to know the best and to make this knowledge prevail for the good of all humankind.

Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.

Culture is the ability to store, exchange, and improve ideas. This vast cooperative system has always been one of abundance’s largest engines.

Now, the use of culture is that it helps us, by means of its spiritual standard of perfection, to regard wealth as but machinery, and not only to say as a matter of words that we regard wealth as but machinery, but really to perceive and feel that it is so.

If it were not for this purging effect wrought upon our minds by culture, the whole world, the future as well as the present, would inevitably belong to the Philistines. The people who believe most that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being very rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich, are just the very people whom we call Philistines.

Culture says: 'Consider these people, then, their way of life, their habits, their manners, the very tones of their voice; look at them attentively; observe the literature they read, the things which give them pleasure, the words which come forth out of their mouths, the thoughts which make the furniture of their minds; would any amount of wealth be worth having with the condition that one was to become just like these people by having it?

Culture may even be described simply as that which makes life worth living.

culture – the collectively shared meaning

Culture is necessary for human beings to evolve into better creatures.

Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit

The most essential and fundamental aspect of culture is the study of literature, since this is an education in how to picture and understand human situations.

الثقافة أن تعرف نفسك , أن تعرف الناس , أن تعرف الأشياء والعلاقات , ونتيجة لذلك ستحسن التصرف فيم يلم بك من أطوار الحياة

Culture . . . seeks to do away with classes; to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere; to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light...

Culture is the tacit agreement to let the means of subsistence disappear behind the purpose of existence.

As I see it, a person’s culture represents his appraisal of the things that make up his life. And a fellow becomes cultured, I believe, by selecting that which is fine and beautiful in life and throwing aside that which is mediocre or phony. Sort of a series of free, very personal choices, you might say. If this is true, then I think it follows that ‘freedom’ is the most precious word to culture. Freedom to believe what you choose and read, think and say and be with what you choose. In America, we are guaranteed these freedoms. It is the constitutional privilege of every American to become cultured or to grow up like Donald Duck. I believe that this spiritual and intellectual freedom, which we Americans enjoy, is our greatest cultural blessing. Therefore, it seems to me, that the first duty of culture is to defend freedom and resist all tyranny.

Culture is the sum total of shared habits and expectations