Yi-Fu Tuan

• “A special target of examination ought to be how societies differ in making room for pauses in the midst of life, for it is during such pauses that individuals are able to appraise the meaning of what they have undergone.”
• “In contrast to the flux and muddle of life, art is clarity and enduring presence. In the stream of life, few things are perceived clearly because few things stay put. Every mood or emotion is mixed or diluted by contrary and extraneous elements. The clarity of art—the precise evocation of mood in the novel, or of summer twilight in a painting—is like waking to a bright landscape after a long fitful slumber, or the fragrance of chicken soup after a week of head cold.”
• “Young children distinguish between good people and bad people, but, unless explicitly taught, they do not distinguish between foreigner and native.”
• “Unlike a small village, the city speaks loud and clear of history, of being the terminus of a long, cumulative process.”
• “Ideally, society is a dance, and every society has its own choreography that is passed down the generations.”
• “Stars define civilization, as no single natural feature on Earth--tree, rock, stream, or mountain--can be said to define cultures.”

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