Refinement Quotes - Page 3

As you know, shibumi has to do with great refinement underlying commonplace appearances. It is a statement so correct that it does not have to be bold, so poignant it does not have to be pretty, so true it does not have to be real. Shibumi is understanding, rather than knowledge. Eloquent silence. In demeanor, it is modesty without pudency. In art, where the spirit of shibumi takes the form of sabi, it is elegant simplicity, articulate brevity. In philosophy, where shibumi emerges as wabi, it is spiritual tranquility that is not passive; it is being without the angst of becoming.

Trevanian

Spiritual, Art, Real

Trevanian (2005). “Shibumi: A Novel”, p.77, Broadway Books

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Taste is an evolution and refinement of one’s personal likes and dislikes. This evolution takes place with a constant curiosity and interest in everything. The editing consequently refines the choices and defines taste.

Norma Kamali

Likes And Dislikes, Editing, Choices

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The most precise work is generally done by hand, with hand tools. Some people rely on machines for their precision, and my way of working is backwards. I rely on the machines for doing the gross stock removal and then, when it comes to the final refinements and fitting of joints and things, making things work together, I rely more on sharp-edged tools that I push by hand.

Martin Puryear

Hands, People, Together

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Beauty lies in harmony, not in contrast; and harmony is refinement; therefore, there must be a fineness of the senses if we are to appreciate harmony.

Maria Montessori

Lying, Appreciate, Harmony

Maria Montessori, Gerald Lee Gutek (2004). “The Montessori Method: The Origins of an Educational Innovation : Including an Abridged and Annotated Edition of Maria Montessori's The Montessori Method”, p.179, Rowman & Littlefield

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Although random mutations influenced the course of evolution, their influence was mainly by loss, alteration, and refinement... Never, however, did that one mutation make a wing, a fruit, a woody stem, or a claw appear. Mutations, in summary, tend to induce sickness, death, or deficiencies. No evidence in the vast literature of heredity changes shows unambiguous evidence that random mutation itself, even with geographical isolation of populations, leads to speciation.

Lynn Margulis

Loss, Wings, Population

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Our girls have need of such an example of graciousness, elegance, refinement, and spirituality.

Maria Young Dougall

Girl, Example, Needs

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Among all the accomplishments of life none are so important as refinement; it is not, like beauty, a gift of Nature, and can only be acquired by cultivation and practice.

James Ellis

Practice, Accomplishment, Important

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Only the tango has continued to enjoy undiminished favor for more than twenty years in spite of polishing and refinement. To be sure, it is no pure Negro dance and owes its best qualities to the unusual dance talents of the Spaniards.

Curt Sachs

Dance, Years, Dancing

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Perhaps the seeds of false-refinement, immorality, and vanity, have ever been shed by the great. Weak, artificial beings, raised above the common wants and defections of their race, in a premature and unnatural manner, undermine the very foundation of virtue, and spread corruption through the whole mass of society!

Mary Wollstonecraft

Leadership, Women, Vanity

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In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement.

James Henry Hammond

Skills, Order, Civilization

James Henry Hammond (1866). “Selections from the Letters and Speeches of the Hon. James H. Hammond: Of South Carolina”, p.318

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Love, consciousness, and creativity are the highest refinements of the cosmic evolutionary force.

Alex Grey

Creativity, Consciousness, Force

FaceBook post by Alex Grey from May 10, 2012

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It has always seemed to me that a love of natural objects, and the depth, as well as exuberance and refinement of mind, produced by an intelligent delight in scenery, are elements of the first importance in the education of the young.

Frederick William Faber

Intelligent, Mind, Depth

Frederick William Faber (1857). “Sir Lancelot. A poem”, p.5

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Change is REFINEMENT. Change is GROWTH. Change is MOVEMENT. Change is OPPORTUNITY.

Jeffrey Gitomer

Opportunity, Growth, Movement

Twitter post from Feb 16, 2016

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When a language begins to teem with books, it is tending to refinement; as those who undertake to teach others must have undergone some labour in improving themselves, they set a proportionate value on their own thoughts, and wish to enforce them by efficacious expressions; speech becomes embodied and permanent; different modes and phrases are compared, and the best obtains an establishment. By degrees one age improves upon another.

Samuel Johnson

Book, Expression, Wish

Samuel Johnson (1810). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An essay on his life and genius”, p.349

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Style is a continuum. Style never changes. It's a straight line. It's a refinement of the same vocabulary. Style takes you from day to evening, season to season.

Ralph Rucci

Vocabulary, Style, Lines

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In a state of nature, the weakest go to the wall; in a state of over-refinement, both the weak and the strong go to the gutter.

Elbert Hubbard

Strong, Wall, Civilization

Elbert Hubbard (1922). “Selected Writings of Elbert Hubbard ...”

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I am thrilled that DDLJ has beaten all records, Shah Rukh Khan and I share a close friendship that translates onto the screen. We have such fun working together. Shah Rukh has a great sense of humour. He invests incredible energy into his acting. He reads a lot. I share all these with him. I love books. I love his style of working and abundant refinement. I love him to death and would like to work with him again.

Kajol

Fun, Book, I Love Him

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Fetish is the exploration of sex as art, and the refinement of one’s personal desires. Anything can be fetishised...There’ll be new fetishes forever. I feel that the 21st century is all about fetish.

Rick Castro

Art, Sex, Forever

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Each human being has the eternal duty of turning what is hard and brutal into
a tender and subtle offering, what is crude into an object of refinement, what
is ugly into a thing of beauty, confrontation into collaboration, ignorance into
knowledge, hereby rediscovering the child's dream of a creative reality
incessantly renewed by death, the servant of life, and by life the servant of love

Yehudi Menuhin

Dream, Children, Ignorance

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Lamborghini is refinement, luxury and perfection.

Ferruccio Lamborghini

Luxury, Perfection, Lamborghini

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I foresee great refinements in the field of short-pulse microwave signaling, whereby several simultaneous programs may occupy the same channel, in sequence, with incredibly swift electronic communication... Short waves will be generally used in the kitchen for roasting and baking, almost instantaneously...

Lee De Forest

Communication, Kitchen, Fields

"Dawn of the Electronic Age" by Lee De Forest, blog.modernmechanix.com. January 1952.

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Even in a personal sense, after all, art is an intensified life. By art one is more deeply satisfied and more rapidly used up. It engraves on the countenance of its servant the traces of imaginary and intellectual adventures, and even if he has outwardly existed in cloistral tranquility, it leads in the long term to overfastidiousness, over-refinement, nervous fatigue and overstimulation, such as can seldom result from a life of the most extravagant passions and pleasures.

Thomas Mann

Art, Passion, Adventure

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I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists. I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings are only the objects of pity, and that kind of love which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.

Mary Wollstonecraft

Heart, Mind, Wish

Mary Wollstonecraft (2012). “Mary, A Fiction and The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria”, p.303, Broadview Press

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Of course he despised the world as a whole; every thoughtful man should; it is almost a test of refinement.

E. M. Forster

Thoughtful, Men, World

E. M. Forster (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)”, p.424, Delphi Classics

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The indifference, callousness and contempt that so many people exhibit toward animals is evil first because it results in great suffering in animals, and second because it results in an incalculably great impoverishment of the human spirit. 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.

Ashley Montagu

Animal, People, Evil

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