Taste Quotes - Page 3

• Taste cannot be controlled by law.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Law, Controlled

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, 1: Correspondence and Private Papers”, p.138

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• We all have some taste or other, of too ancient a date to admit of our remembering it was an acquired one.

  Charles Lamb

  Remember, Ancient

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• Between good sense and good taste there lies the difference between a cause and its effect.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Lying, Differences, Causes

  "Of Opinions". "Characters", Book by Jean De La Bruyère, www.ourcivilisation.com. 1688.

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• All of life is a dispute over taste and tasting.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Life Is, Disputes, Tasting

  Friedrich Nietzsche, Graham Parkes (2008). “Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and Nobody”, p.101, Oxford University Press

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• What is exhilarating in bad taste is the aristocratic pleasure of giving offense.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Giving, Literature, Pleasure

  Charles Baudelaire, Christopher Isherwood, W. H. Auden (2006). “Intimate Journals”, p.49, Courier Corporation

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• Good taste cannot supply the place of genius in literature, for the best proof of taste, when there is no genius, would be, not to write at all.

  Madame de Stael

  Writing, Would Be, Genius

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• Good taste is the worst vice ever invented.

  Edith Sitwell

  Fashion, Vices, Worst

  "The Last Years of a Rebel: A Memoir of Edith Sitwell". Book by Edith Sitwell, 1967.

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• Taste and good-nature are universally connected.

  William Shenstone

  Good Nature, Connected

  William Shenstone (1794). “Essays on Men and Manners”, p.96

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• Be artistic, choose taste, set an example.

  Sara Genn

  Example, Artistic

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• Taste is pursued at a less expense than fashion.

  William Shenstone

  Fashion, Expenses, Pursued

  William Shenstone (1868). “Essays on Men and Manners”, p.248

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• Taste is improved by cultivation.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Cultivation

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• Civilization is merely an advance in taste: accepting, all the time, nicer things, and rejecting nasty ones.

  Katharine Fullerton Gerould

  Civilization, Nasty, Accepting

  Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1920). “Modes and Morals”

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• There are two kinds of taste, the taste for emotions of surprise and the taste for emotions of recognition.

  Henry James

  Two, Recognition, Emotion

  Henry James (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry James (Illustrated)”, p.12847, Delphi Classics

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• Tis chiefly taste, or blunt, or gross, or fine,
  Makes life insipid, bestial, or divine.
  Better be born with taste to little rent
  Than the dull monarch of a continent;
  Without this bounty which the gods bestow,
  Can Fortune make one favorite happy?
  No.

  John Armstrong

  Dull, Littles, Blunt

  John Armstrong, Samuel Johnson (1822). “The Poems of Armstrong and Johnson”, p.89

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• The dullard finds even wine tasteless, while the sorcerer is intoxicated by the mere sight of water.

  Hakim Bey

  Wine, Sight, Water

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• It seems like people get afraid of a certain music if they can't pigeonhole it to their satisfaction... Good music is good music, and that should be enough for anybody.

  Bradley Nowell

  Music, People, Singers

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• Elegance is elimination.

  Cristobal Balenciaga

  Fashion, Clothes, Style

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• We never taste a perfect joy; our happiest successes are mixed with sadness.

  Pierre Corneille

  Sadness, Perfect, Joy

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• A fastidious taste is like a squeamish appetite; the one has its origin in some disease of the mind, as the other has in some ailment of the stomach.

  Robert Southey

  Mind, Disease, Appetite

  Robert Southey (1865). “The Doctor, Etc”, p.42

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• Our purity of taste is best tested by its universality, for if we can only admire this thing or that, we maybe use that our cause for liking is of a finite and false nature.

  John Ruskin

  Causes, Purity, Admire

  John Ruskin (2013). “Selections and Essays”, p.87, Courier Corporation

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• There are some readers who have never read an essay on taste; and if they take my advice they never will, for they can no more improve their taste by so doing than they could improve their appetite or digestion by studying a cookery-book.

  Robert Southey

  Book, Advice, Digestion

  Robert Southey (1865). “The Doctor, Etc”, p.99

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• It is known that the taste--whatever it is--is improved exactly as we improve our judgment, by extending our knowledge, by a steady attention to our object, and by frequent exercise.

  Edmund Burke

  Exercise, Attention, Judgment

  Edmund Burke (1792). “The works of ... Edmund Burke [ed. by W. King and F. Laurence].”, p.87

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• True taste is forever growing, learning, reading, worshipping, laying its hand upon its mouth because it is astonished, casting its shoes from off its feet because it finds all ground holy.

  John Ruskin

  Reading, Feet, Hands

  John Ruskin (1849). “Of ideas of beauty”, p.25

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• Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from those material sources which are attractive to oar moral nature in its purity and perfection.

  John Ruskin

  Perfect, Receiving, Moral

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• It is for the most part in our skill in manners, and in the observations of time and place and of decency in general, that what is called taste by way of distinction consists; and which is in reality no other than a more refined judgment.

  Edmund Burke

  Reality, Skills, Way

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