Refinement Quotes - Page 9

• The science of the church is neglected for the study of geometry, and they lose sight of Heaven while they are employed in measuring the earth. Euclid is perpetually in their hands. Aristotle and Theophrastus are the objects of their admiration; and they express an uncommon reverence for the works of Galen. Their errors are derived from the abuse of the arts and sciences of the infidels, and they corrupt the simplicity of the gospel by the refinements of human reason.

  Edward Gibbon

  Art, Sight, Hands

  Edward Gibbon (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Edward Gibbon (Illustrated)”, p.594, Delphi Classics

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• During the process of stepwise refinement, a notation which is natural to the problem in hand should be used as long as possible.

  Niklaus Wirth

  Hands, Long, Problem

  "Program Development by Stepwise Refinement". Communications of the ACM 14 (4), April 1971.

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• Luxury, or a refinement on the pleasures and conveniences of life, had long been supposed the source of every corruption in government, and the immediate cause of faction, sedition, civil wars, and the total loss of liberty. It was, therefore, universally regarded as a vice, and was an object of declamation to all satyrists, and severe moralists.

  David Hume

  War, Loss, Luxury

  David Hume (1751). “An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals”, p.30

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• It belongs among the refinements of totalitarian government in our century that they don't permit their opponents to die a great, dramatic martyr's death for their convictions.

  Hannah Arendt

  Government, Opponents, Dramatic

  Hannah Arendt (2006). “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil”, p.206, Penguin

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• The feeling of an evolution is a constant for every artist who is pursuing the search of refinement and enlargement of his/her own means of expression.

  Andrea Bocelli

  Mean, Artist, Expression

  "Opera Star Andrea Bocelli On Finishing His Master’s And His ‘Passion For Life’". Interview with Kia Makarechi, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 3, 2013.

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• Modesty in dress and language and deportment is a true mark of refinement and a hallmark of a virtuous Latter-day Saint woman.

  Ezra Taft Benson

  Dresses, Saint, Modesty

  Ezra Taft Benson (1990). “Come, Listen to a Prophet's Voice”, Shadow Mountain

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• A feast not profuse but elegant; more of salt [refinement] than of expense.

  Lord Byron

  Salt, Expenses, Elegant

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• The crimes of extreme civilization are probably worse than those of extreme barbarism, because of their refinement, the corruption they presuppose, and their superior degree of intellectuality.

  Jules Amedee Barbey d'Aurevilly

  Civilization, Degrees, Corruption

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• Luxury and excessive refinement are sure forerunners of the decadence of states, because when all individuals seek their own interests they neglect the public weal.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Luxury, Lifestyle, Individual

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• Although our "gentle air" cannot improve the way hate and envy look, it does seem not to encourage firmness and decision. All is compromise; caution and refinement are everywhere. Everything has to "make a good impression" - whether or not it is any good: the impression is the main thing.

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Hate, Air, Envy

  Arnold Schoenberg, Leonard Stein (1975). “Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg”, p.196, Univ of California Press

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• I don't know if the music moves forward anymore. I haven't heard anything for years - except refinement - coming out of the jazz world.

  Paul Smoker

  Moving Forward, Years, World

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• Mozart tapped the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breathtaking rightness.

  Aaron Copland

  Flow, Breathtaking, Spontaneity

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• Who has reached the extreme limits of scale with the same infallible precision, equally guarded against the false refinement of artificial elegance and the roughness of spurious force? Who has better known how to breathe anguish and dread into the purest and most exquisite forms?

  Charles Gounod

  Limits, Breathe, Elegance

  Marie Anne de Bovet, Charles Gounod (1891). “Charles Gounod: His Life and His Works”

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• Tyranny has no need of arts or sciences, for its policy, which is very shallow and without any refinement, only consists in shedding blood.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Art, Blood, Tyrants

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• Collective guilt is borne by what is conventionally called the scapegoat. Now the scapegoat for white society - which is based on myths of progress, civilization, liberalism, education, enlightenment, refinement - will be precisely the force that opposes the expansion and the triumph of these myths. This brutal opposing force is supplied by the Negro.

  Frantz Fanon

  Civilization, White, Guilt

  Frantz Fanon (1967). “Black Skin, White Masks”, p.194, Pluto Press

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• Yoga is meant for the purification of body and its exploration as well as for the refinement of the mind.

  B.K.S. Iyengar

  Yoga, Mind, Body

  B.K.S. Iyengar (2006). “Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom”, p.50, Rodale

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• No sane person, I hope, would accuse me of saying that every Distributist must drink beer; especially if he could brew his own cider or found claret better for his health. But I do most emphatically scorn and scout the vulgar refinement that regards beer as something unseemly and humiliating. And I would shout the name of beer a hundred times a day, to shock all the snobs who have so shameful a sense of shame.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Beer, Names, Cider

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• Mixed dinner parties of ladies and gentlemenare very rare, which is a great defect in the society; not only as depriving themof the most social and hospitable manner of meeting, but as leading to frequent dinner parties of gentlemen without ladies, which certainly does not conduce to refinement.

  Frances Trollope

  Party, Gentleman, Doe

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• To become balanced, meditate on the heart center in the center of the chest. There you will experience happiness, refinement, sensitivity, beauty, laughter.

  Frederick Lenz

  Laughter, Heart, Buddhism

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• My friend had a brilliant idea. This impressed me. It reflected an immense deal of credit on his brain. But when he expressed it,it lost all value, and enjoyed but a commonplace status. My friend blamed this devaluation on the language. "I hate English," he said. So he studied another language. He mastered it so perfectly that there was no room left in his brain for a brilliant idea. Now he has a grudge against words. He refuses to use them. He prefers to shrug or grunt. A new crop of ideas is growing. They show promise of future refinement.

  Marvin L. Cohen

  Hate, Ideas, Brain

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• As to the pure all things are pure, so the common mind sees far more vulgarity in others than the mind developed in genuine refinement.

  George MacDonald

  Mind, Common, Genuine

  George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Novels of George Macdonald (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood, Wilfrid Cumbermede and many more”, p.5197, e-artnow

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• In the wildest nature, there is not only the material of the most cultivated life, and a sort of anticipation of the last result,but a greater refinement already than is ever attained by man.... Nature is prepared to welcome into her scenery the finest work of human art, for she is herself an art so cunning that the artist never appears in his work.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Art, Nature, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (1873). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.335

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• Whenever education and refinement carry us away from the common people, they are growing towards selfishness, which is the monster evil of the world. That is true cultivation which gives us sympathy with every form of human life, and enables us to work most successfully for its advancement. Refinement that carries us away from our fellow people is not God's refinement.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  People, Evil, Giving

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• The sick woman especially: no one surpasses her in refinements for ruling, oppressing, tyrannising.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Sick, Sickness, Ruling

  Friedrich Nietzsche “Delphi Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Illustrated): Friedrich Nietzsche”, Delphi Classics

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• The greatest grossness sometimes accompanies the greatest refinement, as a natural relief.

  William Hazlitt

  Relief, Sometimes, Natural

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1336, Delphi Classics

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