Refined Quotes - page 2

But to proceed; as in order and place, so also in matter of her Creation, Woman far excells Man. things receive their value from the matter they are made of, and the excellent skill of their maker: Pots of common clay must not contend with China-dishes, nor pewter utensils vye dignity with those of silver.... Woman was not composed of any inanimate or vile dirt, but of a more refined and purified substance, enlivened and actuated by a Rational Soul, whose operations speak it a beam, or bright ray of Divinity. (Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa)
We used to think that secrecy was perhaps the greatest enemy of democracy, and as long as there was no suppression or censorship, people could be trusted to make the informed decisions that would preserve our free society, but we have learned in recent years that the techniques of misinformation and misdirection have become so refined that, even in an open society, a cleverly directed flood of misinformation can overwhelm the truth, even though the truth is out there, uncensored, quietly available to anyone who can find it. View quote
Daniel Dennett
Already, he was dreaming of a refined solitude, a comfortable desert, a motionless ark in which to seek refuge from the unending deluge of human stupidity. View quote
Joris-Karl Huysmans
When a plan or strategy fails, people are tempted to assume it was the wrong vision. Plans and strategies can always be changed and improved. But vision doesn't change. Visions are simply refined with time. View quote
Andy Stanley
There are many men - such as those often to be found among the Indians - who are refined until they have qualities often attributed to the female sex. Yet they are men, and strong ones. View quote
Agnes Smedley
Certainly I was relatively a refined person. No way a tramp. View quote
Beatrice Wood
Genius is nothing more than common faculties refined to a greater intensity. There are no astonishing ways of doing astonishing things. All astonishing things are done by ordinary materials. View quote
Benjamin Haydon
You see, I was born in the slums, that was before the ghetto. The ghetto was kind of refined; the slums was right there on the ground. View quote
Della Reese
I had TB as a child. So I was put to doing things like drawing and reading. And I was raised in a family where manners were important. Maybe that's why I seem so refined. View quote
Katherine Helmond
Our demand for meat, dairy and refined carbohydrates - the world consumes one billion cans or bottles of Coke a day - our demand for these things, not our need, our want - drives us to consume way more calories than are good for us. View quote
Mark Bittman
People are complex. You can be smart and still look hot. You can be a punk rocker yet have a refined vocabulary. It's all about this mashup that makes us who we are and I think that's a beautiful thing. (Nadia Giosia)
And it's sad because it's like a surprise to people - almost an anomaly - when artists are actually refined and trained on an instrument. That's the last thing people think about. View quote
Vanessa Carlton
So still was he, that but for the searching intellect which glittered in his full dark eye, you might have taken him for a carven image as he pondered his moves. His bearing was mild and that of a refined gentleman, and he dealt the most crushing blows on his adversary with an almost womanly ease and grace. View quote
Paul Morphy
There was a beauty here, refined from country pastures, a game of solitariness, of waiting, waiting for the pitcher to complete his gaze toward first base and throw his lightning, a game whose very taste, of spit and dust and grass and sweat and leather and sun, was America. View quote
John Updike
They were newly rich contractors who, having bought houses, motors, hand-painted pictures, and gentlemanliness, were now buying a refined ready-made philosophy. It had been a tossup with them whether to buy New Thought, Christian Science, or a good standard high-church model of Episcopalianism. View quote
Sinclair Lewis
Taking offense has become America's national pastime; being theatrically offended supposedly signifies the exquisitely refined moral delicacy of people who feel entitled to pass through life without encountering ideas or practices that annoy them. View quote
George Will
Politically the Mukti Bahini count for nothing, lacking as they do any ideological preparation, any indoctrination, any discipline. Then socially speaking, they're a disturbance-they only know how to fire in the air, frighten people, steal, yell Joi Bangla. And you can't run a country by yelling Joi Bangla. The Bengali Maoists, on the other hand ... well, they certainly don't represent a very refined productat most they've read half of Mao's little red book. But they're an articulate force and don't let themselves be used by the Indians, and I don't even think they're against the unity of Pakistan. They'll end up having the upper hand. View quote
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Contentment is, after all, simply refined indolence. View quote
Thomas Chandler Haliburton
Liberalism-it is well to recall this today-is the supreme form of generosity; it is the right which the majority concedes to minorities and hence it is the noblest cry that has ever resounded in this planet. It announces the determination to share existence with the enemy; more than that, with an enemy which is weak. It was incredible that the human species should have arrived at so noble an attitude, so paradoxical, so refined, so acrobatic, so anti-natural. Hence, it is not to be wondered at that this same humanity should soon appear anxious to get rid of it. It is a discipline too difficult and complex to take firm root on earth. View quote
José Ortega y Gasset
Demiurgus [said my father] was enamoured of refined, perfect, and sophisticated materials. We give precedence to junk. We are simply rapt by it, entranced by the cheapness, the paltriness, the tawdriness of the material. Do you understand,” my father asked, "the profound meaning of that weakness, that passion for gaudy tissue-paper, papier-mâ ché, coloured lacquer, straw, and sawdust? It is,” he said with a pained smile, "our love for matter as such, for its downiness and porousness, its unique, mystical consistency. Demiurgus, that renowned master and artist, hides it away, causes it to vanish behind life's make-believe. We, to the contrary, love its abrasiveness, its unruliness, its rag doll ungainliness. Behind each gesture, each movement, we like to see its exertion, its torpor, its sweet ursinality. View quote
Bruno Schulz
I exhibited three paintings at the Salon d'Automne exhibition [Paris], which is the most interesting exhibition I have seen until now. Much more interesting than the Secession [in München]. My paintings [two words cancelled] were noticed and praised by the art critics. I think I will be very famous here in a few years time. Reading my name in the newspapers and seeing people notice my paintings and write about them has given me new and strange joy. – Paris is a beautiful city. Why do you remain in the monotony of Munich's heavy atmosphere? Here one can find everything one desires. Everything is refined and has spirit and everyday one learns something new.. The French are more intelligent than I thought. They laugh a lot, but they understand better than the Germans what is refined, strange and outside the ordinary. (Giorgio de Chirico)
The Dior display suddenly made me nostalgic for France. What was before me was so clearly more refined than the other displays. And it stood out in my memory. Later when I was given the chance to buy Christian Dior, I remembered White Plains and Bloomingdales. I have no doubt that unconsciously it had an effect on me. View quote
Christian Dior
Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow. You are here to realize your inner divinity and manifest your innate enlightenment. View quote
Morihei Ueshiba
Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very foundation of refinement: a sanded floor and whitewashed walls, and the green trees, and flowery meads, and living waters outside; or a grimy palace amid the smoke with a regiment of housemaids always working to smear the dirt together so that it may be unnoticed; which, think you, is the most refined, the most fit for a gentleman of those two dwellings? So I say, if you cannot learn to love real art; at least learn to hate sham art and reject it. It is not because the wretched thing is so ugly and silly and useless that I ask you to cast it from you; it is much more because these are but the outward symbols of the poison that lies within them; look through them and see all that has gone to their fashioning, and you will see how vain labour, and sorrow, and disgrace have been their companions from the first - and all this for trifles that no man really needs! View quote
William Morris
It was Africa distilled up through six thousand feet like the strong and refined essence of a continent... The views were immensely wide - everything that you saw made for greatness and freedom, and unequalled nobility. View quote
Karen Blixen