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Refinement Quotes

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Refinement Quotes

“Count Ayakura’s abstraction persisted. He believed that only a vulgar mentality was willing to acknowledge the possibility of catastrophe. He felt that taking naps was much more beneficial than confronting catastrophes. However precipitous the future might seem, he learned from the game of kemari that the ball must always come down. There was no call for consternation. Grief and rage, along with other outbursts of passion, were mistakes easily committed by a mind lacking in refinement. And the Count was certainly not a man who lacked refinement. Just let matters slide. How much better to accept each sweet drop of the honey that was Time, than to stoop to the vulgarity latent in every decision. However grave the matter at hand might be, if one neglected it for long enough, the act of neglect itself would begin to affect the situation, and someone else would emerge as an ally. Such was Count Ayakura’s version of political theory.”

AcceptanceIndifferenceJapanEleganceInactionRefinementPassivity
Book:Spring Snow
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“Your divine detour is meant to build your character. To refine you. To prompt you to get back into the driver’s seat of your life. To understand that you are never too old, and it is never too late to start afresh.”

CharacterCourageStrengthIntuitionEmpoweredDiscernmentRefinementBeginningsIntuitive GuideDivine Detour
Book:Intuitive Guide: How to Trust Your Gut, Embrace Divine Signs, & Connect with Heavenly Messengers
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“The pursuit of personal development is a tapestry woven with threads of motivation, happiness, and self-improvement. Staying motivated is an art, requiring the cultivation of a mindset that finds inspiration in every challenge. True happiness springs from aligning your pursuits with your passions, and self-improvement is the compass guiding you towards the best version of yourself. To be better and stronger involves a commitment to continuous refinement, learning from experiences, and embracing resilience in the face of adversity. A crucial aspect of this journey is the discernment to distance yourself from toxic people and political ideologies that threaten your well-being, ensuring a path of positive growth and fulfillment.”

HappinessMotivationLearningPositiveDevelopmentResilienceImprovementToxicRefinementTapestry
Author:James William Steven Parker
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“Ah, I believe Schacht. Only too willingly; that’s to say, I think what he says is absolutely true, for the world is incomprehensibly crass, tyrannical, moody, and cruel to sickly and sensitive people. Well, Schacht will stay here for the time being. We laughed at him a bit, when he arrived, that can’t be helped either, Schacht is young and after all can’t be allowed to think there are special degrees, advantages, methods, and considerations for him. He has now had his first disappointment, and I’m convinced that he’ll have twenty disappointments, one after the other. Life with its savage laws is in any case for certain people a succession of discouragements and terrifying bad impressions. People like Schacht are born to feel and suffer a continuous sense of aversion. He would like to admit and welcome things, but he just can’t. Hardness and lack of compassion strike him with tenfold force, he just feels them more acutely. Poor Schacht. He’s a child and he should be able to revel in melodies and bed himself in kind, soft, carefree things. For him there should be secret splashings and birdsong. Pale and delicate evening clouds should waft him away in the kingdom of Ah, What’s Happening to Me? His hands are made for light gestures, not for work. Before him breezes should blow, and behind him sweet, friendly voices should be whispering. His eyes should be allowed to remain blissfully closed, and Schacht should be allowed to go quietly to sleep again, after being wakened in the morning in the warm, sensuous cushions. For him there is, at root, no proper activity, for every activity is for him, the way he is, improper, unnatural, and unsuitable. Compared with Schacht I’m the trueblue rawboned laborer. Ah, he’ll be crushed, and one day he’ll die in a hospital. or he’ll perish, ruined in body and soul, inside one of our modern prisons.”

FriendsDisappointmentSatireSensitivityRefinementHarsh Reality
Book:Jakob von Gunten
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“What does it mean to be cultured? Who is the cultured person? The cultured individual is not defined nor determined by status in society nor by wealth; but the cultured individual is determined and defined by his or her sense for the art of life. And what is the art of life? The art of life is the reflection of the mind and the soul upon the world, upon other people, upon the respect and understanding of other people and upon the things that are in this world and beyond. There is a joy that is always sought in beautiful things. Being cultured is being conscious, reflective, understanding, feeling, aware. Knowing how to feel, to listen, to understand. A desire to find or to create joy in many things— that is the art of life. And these things define a cultured person.”

CultureClassWisdom QuotesRefinementClassy WomanThe Art Of LifeThe Art Of LivingClassy PeopleCultured PeopleRefined PeopleRefined Woman
Author:C. JoyBell C.
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“I believe...that to be very poor and very beautiful is most probably a moral failure more than an artistic success. Shakespeare would have done well in any generation because he would have refused to die in a corner; he would have taken the false gods and made them over; he would have taken the current formulae and forced them into something lesser men thought them incapable of. Alive today he would undoubtedly have written and directed motion pictures, plays, and God knows what. Instead of saying, "This medium is not good," he would have used it and made it good. If some people called some his work cheap (which some of it was), he wouldn't have cared a rap, because he would know that without some vulgarity there is no complete man. He would have hated refinement, as such, because it is always a withdrawal, and he was too tough to shrink from anything.”

ArtCourageGreatnessIntegrityBraveryInnovationHip HopGreat ArtPornographyShakespeareRefinementVulgarityModern ArtCourage To Be OneselfThe TruthFresh IdeasSasha GreyStruggling ArtistStruggling WriterLars Von TrierBeautiful LosersPorn As ArtSex In Cinema
Book:Raymond Chandler Speaking
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“Don´t let your work define you. But let you define what works for you to defy and refine you even more.”

HappinessWorkLearningPressureObstaclesResistanceBeing YourselfJobWork EthicChallengeRefinementDifficultiesWorksSearching For HappinessDream JobEnduringBeing Your True SelfEnduring HardshipsRefineWorks RighteousnessEthical BehaviourDoing Your Life S WorkEthical TeachingPolishingBeing Your BestDefience
Book:A-Z of Happiness: Tips for Living and Breaking Through the Chain that Separates You from Getting That Dream Job
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“The fires of refinement will shine the light of Christ into the dark places of our hearts, burn off the chaff, and restore us to a state of greater purity.”

Life QuotesFireLife And LivingLife Quotes And SayingsLife Lessons QuotesRefinementLifestyle QuotesLife ChallengesLight Of ChristRefinement Quotes
Book:No Regrets: How Loving Deeply and Living Passionately Can Impact Your Legacy Forever
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“...this refinement and delicacy were what Cale adored; but Cale had been beaten into shape, hammered in dreadful fires of fear and pain. How could she be with him for long? A secret part of Arbell had been searching for some time for a way to leave her lover—although she was unaware of this, it is only fair to record. And so as Cale waited for her to save him while he worked out a way of saving her, she had already chosen the bitter but reasonable path of the good, of the many over the one...”

LoveHeartSoulGodPainEvilFearSecretPathFireGoodChosenBitterReasonableLoverAdoreBadRefinementDelicacySaveHandHammeredPaulBeatShapePartUnawareNeckCaleHoffmanSwanTomasDreadfulArbellLaft
Book:The Left Hand of God
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“There we were, filled with pure animal need, as he pinned me to the wooden table, and cruelly whipped my naked bottom; the two of us sweaty and panting, me screaming, him grunting, our primal sexual natures overprinting the tea room’s pretence at gentility, and refinement.”

LoveRomanceDesirePassionSexWomenRelationshipsMen And WomenLustErotic RomanceRefinementArousalAlpha MalesGentilitySexual EcstasyTea Rooms
Book:Naked and Sexual
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“I have come to believe that our innate purpose is nothing more than to be the greatest version of ourselves. It is a process of refinement, improvement, and enhancement. When you are aligned with this process and living your purpose, you have the potential of creating something amazing.”

SuccessPurposeProcessChangeGreatnessLivingCreatingImprovementPotentialRefinementAmazingEnhancementAligned
Book:Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
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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.”

ForceWhiteProgressCivilizationEnlightenmentGuiltMythTriumphLiberalismCollectivesBrutalExpansionOpposingRefinementScapegoat
Book:Black Skin, White Masks
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“When we hear complaints of the wretchedness or vanity of human life, the proper answer to them would be that there is hardly any one who at some point or other has not been in love. If we consider the high abstraction of this feeling, its depth, its purity, its voluptuous refinement, even in the meanest breast, how sacred and how sweet it is, this alone may reconcile us to the lot of humanity. That drop of balm turns the bitter cup to a delicious nectar.”

IfsLoveHumansMayFeelingsWould BeHumanityTurnsAnswersSweetSacredDepthBitterCupsVanityHuman LifePurityBreastsComplaintsDeliciousAbstractionReconcileRefinementBeen In LoveWretchednessNectarVoluptuous
Book:The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt
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“A man who from the beginning has long been soaked in the languid atmosphere of a woman, the scent of her hands, her bosom, her knees, her hair, her lithe and flowing clothes, Sweet bath, suavely Scented with ointments, has acquired a delicacy of skin, a refinement of tone, a kind of androgyny without which the toughest and most virile of geniuses remains, when it comes to artistic perfection, an incomplete being.”

MenKindLongHandsWomenHairGeniusClothesPerfectionSkinsRemainsArtisticAtmosphereKneesToneScentBosomsIncompleteRefinementDelicacyAndrogyny
Author:Charles Baudelaire
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“As the architecture of a country always follows the earliest structures, American architecture should be a refinement of the log-house. The Egyptian is so of the cavern and the mound; the Chinese, of the tent; the Gothic, of overarching trees; the Greek, of a cabin.”

ShouldCountryHouseTreeStructureArchitectureChineseGreekGothicTentsRefinementEgyptianCabinsCaverns
Book:Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Letters, Diaries, Reminiscences and Extensive Biographies: Autobiographical Writings of the Renowned American Novelist, Author of
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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.”

WayLooksDoeSeemsHateDecisionAirEnvyImpressionCompromiseGentleCautionRefinementFirmness
Book:Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg
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“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.”

MenNextGraceDogDangerousHabitDignityMethodLaysPropertyIslamThis LifeCurseProphetInsecurityFollowersApathyFearfulCommerceAgricultureSanctityRefinementFrenzySluggishRadical IslamProselytizing
Book:Churchill: The Power of Words
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