“Almost every culture in the Thousand Cultures had some wisdom literature, and much of it was the same between any two cultures.... Cultures tend to be alike in much of what they think are the basic virtues, but one of the ones they are most alike in, though it rarely appears in their book of wisdom, is: Distrust strangers, fear foreigners, dread novelty.”

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Afterword (1984)
Context: A culture-bearing book, like a mule, bears the culture on its back. No one should sit down to write one deliberately. Culture-bearing books occur almost accidentally, like a sudden change in the stock market. There are books of high quality that are an part of the culture, but that is not the same. They are a part of it. They aren't carrying it anywhere. They may talk about insanity sympathetically, for example, because that's the standard cultural attitude. But they don't carry any suggestion that insanity might be something other than sickness or degeneracy.

Lean Logic, (2016), p. 302, entry on Local Wisdom http://www.flemingpolicycentre.org.uk/lean-logic-surviving-the-future/

Source: Antsy Does Time

Variant: You can't consume much if you sit still and read books.
Source: Brave New World (1932), Ch. 3<!-- p. 50 -->

Naipaul is sui generis.
Lee Kuan Yew's comment when he received him as Vice President of India, the first Muslim Chief Justice of India in Singapore in 1981
Source: Sunanda K. Datta-Ray Looking East to Look West: Lee Kuan Yew's Mission India http://books.google.co.in/books?id=DFo1yl5AGokC&pg=PA230&lpg=PA230, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009, p. 230.

Source: Myths of Composite Culture and Equality of Religions (1990), p. 24

Companion Encyclopedia of the History and Philosophy of the Mathematical Sciences, Volume 1, page 3, 2003.

The Day the Universe Changed (1985), 1 - The Way We Are
Context: The oldest answers to the most basic questions about how to operate are common to virtually every culture on the planet, because at the simplest level, every culture needs to keep order -- especially this kind: (James Burke displays a wedding ring.) This is one of those things in life we protect most against being changed when knowledge changes us. We protect it by turning it into a ritual. When we get married, or buried, get christened, or anything else too important to play by ear, the event is turned into a kind of play where everybody gets a role they act out. It's a kind of public agreement to stick to the general rules about whatever it is. The people doing it are effectively saying, "No matter what else may change, we won't rock the boat! We're not maverick. You can trust us." Expressions of approval follow. Most of these ritual ways of answering a social need that we got from the past look like it. They include something from an ancient rite -- in this case, the old symbol of fertility: the ring. And then, it's all done in the presence of a supernatural being: a God. So, the agreement is also made under what was once a real threat of heavenly retribution if you broke your promise later on. Some things, this ritual says, must be permanent.

Keywords (1983)