Edward T. Hall

“Behind every piece of paper lies a human situation.”

“The future for us is the foreseeable future. The South Asian, however, feels that it is perfectly realistic to think of a 'long time' in terms of thousands of years.”

“Two points that are very important points to remember and ask: Is it real and does it work?”

“Now, you can't tell me, we have the only God in the whole world. You can't tell me that nobody else has God.”

“It is characteristic of all extension systems to be treated as distinct and separate from the user and to take on an identity of their own. Religions, philosophies, literature, and art illustrate this. After a time, the extended system accretes to itself a past and a history as well as a body of knowledge and skills that can be learned. Such systems can be studied and appreciated as entities in themselves.”

“How man evolved with such an incredible reservoir of talent and such fantastic diversity isn't completely understood... he knows so little and has nothing to measure himself against.”

“The information is in the people, not in your head.”

“Man is used to the fact that there are languages which he does not at first understand and which must be learned, but because art is primarily visual he expects that he should get the message immediately and is apt to be affronted if he doesn't.”

“I may be able to spot arrowheads on the desert but a refrigerator is a jungle in which I am easily lost.”

“People carry around with them internalization's fixed-feature space learned early in life. Man is like other members of the animal kingdom , first, last and always a prisoner of his biological organism. No matter how hard he tries, it is impossible for him to the best himself of his own culture, where it has penetrated to the roots of his nervous system and determines how he perceives the world.”

“The reason man does not experience his true cultural self is that until he experiences another self as valid he has little basis for validating his own self.”

“From now on, how one arrives at a definition of the relationship of man's basic nature to his culturally conditioned control systems (extensions) is of crucial importance. For in our shrinking globe man can ill afford cultural illiteracy.”

“Culture is not made up but something that evolves which is human.”

“The study of man is the study of his extensions.”

“Culture hides much more than it reveals, and strangely enough, what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants.”

“Age affects how people experience time.”

“We should never denigrate any other culture but rather help people to understand the relationship between their own culture and the dominant culture. When you understand another culture or language, it does not mean that you have to lose your own culture.”

“For him to have understood me would have meant reorganizing his thinking... giving up his intellectual ballast, and few people are willing to risk such a radical move.”

“One of the most effective ways to learn about oneself is by taking seriously the cultures of others. It forces you to pay attention to those details of life which differentiate them from you.”