Get Your Premium Membership

Refinement Quotations

Refinement quotations. Find, read, and share Refinement quotations. These are the best examples of Refinement quotes on PoetrySoup.

Post your quotes and then create memes or graphics from them.

Quote Left Blood sport is brought to its ultimate refinement in the gossip columns. Quote Right
Quote Left . . there is one other thought closely allied to this. What of our duties to our fellow-men? And here I appeal particularly to my own sex, because women are supposed to be rather the standard in the community of refinement, of gentleness, of compassion, of tenderness, of purity. But no one can eat the flesh of a slaughtered animal without having used the hand of a man as slaughterer. Suppose that we had to kill for ourselves the creatures whose bodies we would fain have upon our table, is there one woman in a hundred who would go to the slaughterhouse to slay the bullock, the calf, the sheep or the pig? . . . But if we could not do it, nor see it done; if we are so refined that we cannot allow close contact between ourselves and the butchers who furnish this food; if we feel that they are so coarsened by their trade that their very bodies are made repulsive by the constant contact of the blood with which they must be continually besmirched; if we recognize the physical coarseness which results inevitably from such contact, dare we call ourselves refined if we purchase our refinement by the brutalization of others, and demand that some should be brutal in order that we may eat the results of their brutality? We are not free from the brutalizing results of that trade simply because we take no direct part in it. Quote Right
Quote Left All education should be directed toward the refinement of the individual's sensibilities in relation not only to one's fellow humans everywhere, but to all things whatsoever. In the societies of the Western world compassionate intelligence is encouraged in girls - in boys it is tabu. The tabu on tenderness in which boys are conditioned, the emphasis on 'manliness,' 'machoism,' plays havoc with the male's capacity for compassionate intelligence. Tenderness is considered to be feminine, and that is sufficient to remove it from the repertoire of masculine behavior. Indeed, things have reached such a pass in the Western world that many men seem to have lost all understanding of its meaning. The masculine world would substitute for it the idea of 'justice.' The difficulty with that is that there is not much compassion in their justice, and justice without compassion is not justice at all. Quote Right
Quote Left Universal manhood suffrage, by establishing an aristocracy of sex, imposes upon the women of this nation a more absolute and cruel despotism than monarchy; in that, woman finds a political master in her father, husband, brother, son. The aristocracies of the old world are based upon birth, wealth, refinement, education, nobility, brave deeds of chivalry; in this nation, on sex alone; exalting brute force above moral power, vice above virtue, ignorance above education, and the son above the mother who bore him. Quote Right
Quote Left To live content with small means, to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion, to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich, to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly, to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart, to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never, in a word to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common, this is to be my symphony. Quote Right
Quote Left It's only with great vulgarity that you can achieve real refinement, only out of bawdy that you can get tenderness. Quote Right
Quote Left Yale's greatness carries an urgent need to guard against the fall of excellence into exclusivity, of refinement into preciousness, of elegance into class and convention. Quote Right
Quote Left Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century: Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others; Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected; Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it; Refusing to set aside trivial preferences; Neglecting development and refinement of the mind; Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do. Quote Right
Quote Left The physicist cannot simply surrender to the philosopher the critical contemplation of the theoretical foundations for he himself knows best and feels most surely where the shoe pinches.... he must try to make clear in his own mind just how far the concepts which he uses are justified... The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking. Quote Right
Quote Left Yale is a crucible in American life for the accommodation of intellectual achievement, of wisdom, of refinement, with the democratic ideals of openness, of social justice and of equal opportunity. Quote Right
Quote Left To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony. Quote Right
Quote Left The same refinement which brings us new pleasures, exposes us to new pains. Quote Right
Quote Left I'm becoming more and more myself with time, I guess that's what grace is, the refinement of your soul through time. Quote Right
Quote Left The surest hindrance of success is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the judgment of the public. He who is determined not to be satisfied with anything short of perfection will never do anything to please himself or others. Quote Right
Quote Left True refinement seeks simplicity. Quote Right
Quote Left The source of genius is imagination alone, the refinement of the senses that sees what others do not see, or sees them differently. Quote Right
Quote Left A life of peace, purity, and refinement leads to a calm and untroubled old age. Quote Right
Quote Left The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking. Quote Right
Quote Left Life will not bear refinement. You must do as other people do. Quote Right

Member Quotes About Refinement

Quote Left Always take time out for rejuvenation and redirection. Inquire as you move along the path. There is no one best way. Different paths—different solutions. Refinement is a constant process of growth for better results! Quote Right

Book: Shattered Sighs