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Culture is the name for what people are interested in, their thoughts, their models, the books they read and the speeches they hear, their table-talk, gossip, controversies, historical sense and scientific training, the values they appreciate, the quality of life they admire. All communities have a culture. It is the climate of their civilization.
Walter Lippmann
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Culture encompasses the interests, thoughts, and values of a community, shaping their identity and civilization.

Walter Lippmann emphasizes the breadth of culture, highlighting that it encompasses everything from people's interests and conversations to their values and education. He suggests that culture is not just a reflection of individual preferences, but a collective identity that influences the civilization of communities, affecting how they relate to one another and understand the world.

Themes

CultureCommunityValuesCivilizationIdentity

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about community development, one might say, 'As Walter Lippmann noted, culture is the climate of our civilization, shaping how we connect and collaborate.'

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The tendency of the casual mind is to pick out or stumble upon a sample which supports or defies its prejudices, and then to make it the representative of a whole class.
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The private citizen, beset by partisan appeals for the loan of his Public Opinion, will soon see, perhaps, that these appeals are not a compliment to his intelligence, but an imposition on his good nature and an insult to his sense of evidence.
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