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Sophistication Quotes

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Sophistication Quotes

“I looked at enough of American Idol in the first weeks, and they're all about humiliation. I listen to Rush Limbaugh because I find it so repulsive. There are people with a little less sophistication who watch a lot of it, because we allow things to appeal to our baser instincts. But at the same moment, give me a little choice, and I'll make a better decision, because I have that ability too. And so does everybody else.”

PeopleGivingFirstsLittlesDoeEnoughMomentsChoicesAbilityDecisionWatchesWeekGive MeInstinctAppealsIdolsHumiliationSophisticationAmerican Idol
Author:Norman Lear
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“Probably, the secret is to be less complicated. We of course love to make complications - look at the way we live. We have this tremendous amount of information, and probably it is really not so necessary. Maybe if you just drink water, you are kind to people and walk a little bit it's all done already. But we cannot resist this sophistication.”

PeopleIfsWayLooksKindLittlesDoneCoursesBitsWaterWalksSecretInformationAmountDrinkLittle BitComplicatedComplicationSophisticationDrink Water
Author:Laura Huxley
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“For all the sophistication of GPS, there still remain numerous problems with their use. The most obvious problem in this context is the problem of landmines. For example, when the French troops went into Kosovo they were told that they were going to enter in half-tracks, over the open fields. But their leaders had forgotten about the landmines. And this was a major problem because, these days, landmines are no longer localized.”

StillsUseProblemHalfLeaderExampleFieldsMajorsForgottenTrackObviousThese DaysTroopsSophisticationMajor ProblemsKosovoGpsLandminesOpen Fields
Author:Paul Virilio
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“[John] Adams's perception of Europe, and especially France, was clearly different than [Tomas] Jefferson's. For Jefferson, the luxury and sophistication of Europe only made American simplicity and virtue appear dearer. For Adams, by contrast, Europe represented what America was fast becoming - a society consumed by luxury and vice and fundamentally riven by a struggle between rich and poor, gentlemen and commoners.”

MadeDifferentAmericaPoorStruggleVirtueRichBecomingPerceptionEuropeSimplicityVicesLuxuryFranceGentlemanContrastConsumedRich And PoorSophisticationCommonersTomas Jefferson
Author:Gordon S. Wood
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“There is always the working out of things, and you have to have sort of a gut response to it. And an intellectual response. And an aesthetic response. All that comes from having done this for a long time. Instead of saying, "That's a really good rock track, and that will do," I'm looking for something that is more original and fresh. There are a lot of elements to get into it: a level or sophistication, passion and excitement.”

LongDonePassionIntellectualResponseTrackWork OutExcitementGutsAestheticSophistication
Author:Andy Summers
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“I'm working for a woman, not a lady. What I hate the most is that "lady" talk. You know, when I read a review, "The lady wears a Bottega Veneta. . . ." What lady? It's the same girls who are walking the runway an hour later elsewhere. But probably it is just the sophistication in our material, the nuance of the color, or the quality of the makeup or the hair that make people think that way. Most people just don't understand simplicity.”

PeopleThinkingHateGirlHoursQualityWalkingI HateSimplicityMakeupElsewhereSophistication
Author:Tomas Maier
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“Steven Meisel is completely consumed with what interests him. He does what he wants to do, and when something doesn't interest him, he's not afraid to say so. I think that's why you don't see his work all over the place as often as you might like to. Today he only photographs what he wants to photograph, what turns him on. He has an extraordinary eye, and his sophistication is limitless. This is a man who doesn't miss a beat.”

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Author:Polly Allen Mellen
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“I think a lot of people are involved in art because of the fashion of art and the conversation. It gives them a certain sophistication, something to speak about. But art is, if it's conceptual, really about understanding the concept. And if it's beautiful, it's about seeing the beauty. It's gone much further than that now. There's too much commercialism attached to art. If the market cracks one day big-time, you'll frighten so many people away who will never come back. Because they don't really feel for art. People who buy art should want it because they love it, they want to enjoy it.”

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Author:Laurence Graff
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“The true essence of Chinese culture is sophistication, refinement, the spirit of poetry. The spirit of ink painting and calligraphy lives on forever. Calligraphy is more important than painting. Chinese always consider nature. Man is a very small part of nature. That's why in Chinese painting you see huge mountains and man very small, very humble before nature. You must be harmonious and one with nature. You don't fight it. And then there's a bit of a poetry. Of course, it's very complicated, but also very simple.”

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Author:Michael Chow
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“In order to teach a course in the history of Western religious thought, I had to do a great deal of research in the writings within the Judaic and Christian traditions and I was astonished to find in those writings philosophical thought of great power and sophistication. These writings completely blew away all my opinions about what I had taken to be the irrationality or immaturity of religious ideas, opinions which were and still are fashionable in many intellectual and literary circles today.”

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Author:Jacob Needleman
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“Sophistication might be described as the ability to cope gracefully with a situation involving the presence of a formidable menace to one's poise and prestige (such as the butler, or the man under the bed - but never the husband).”

MenMightAbilitySituationComedyBedHusbandInvolvingMenacePrestigeFormidableSophisticationButlersPoise
Book:Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself
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“The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question 'How can we eat?' the second by the question 'Why do we eat?' and the third by the question 'Where shall we have lunch?”

FirstsThreeKnownCivilizationMajorsSurvivalThirdsInstanceLunchPhasesInquiryGalaxySophisticationHitchhikers Guide To The GalaxyHitchhikers GuideH2g2
Book:The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
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“From being quite sure of himself and his future he becomes not at all sure. If he be an imaginative boy a door is torn open and for the first time he looks out upon the world, seeing, as though they marched in procession before him, the countless figures of men who before his time have come out of nothingness into the world, lived their lives and again disappeared into nothingness. The sadness of sophistication has come to the boy.”

IfsMenWorldFirstsLooksBoysSeeingDoorsSadnessFiguresFirst TimeNothingnessTornImaginativeSophisticationProcession
Book:Winesburg, Ohio
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“Despite all that education and experience can do, I retain a certain level of unsophistication that I cannot eradicate and that my friends find amusing. In fact, I think I sometimes detect conspiratorial plottings among my friends to protect me against my own lack of sophistication. I don't mind. I suspect that I am never quite as unsophisticated as they think I am, but I don't mind.”

ThinkingMindSometimesFactsCertainCan DoMy OwnLevelsProtectMy FriendsDespiteSuspectsAmusingSophistication
Author:Isaac Asimov
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“From a tale one expects a bit of wildness, of exaggeration and dramatic effect. The tale has no inherent concern with decorum, balance or harmony. ... A tale may not display a great deal of structural, psychological, or narrative sophistication, though it might possess all three, but it seldom takes its eye off its primary goal, the creation of a particular emotional state in its reader. Depending on the tale, that state could be wonder, amazement, shock, terror, anger, anxiety, melancholia, or the momentary frisson of horror.”

MayStatesMightEyeThreeBitsGoalDealsWonderEffectsCreationEmotionalParticularReaderBalanceHorrorAnxietyConcernHarmonyTerrorTalesPsychologicalPrimariesNarrativeDramaticShockDisplayInherentExaggerationMomentaryAmazementSophisticationWildnessDecorum
Author:Peter Straub
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“So that’s our approach. Very simple, and we’re really shooting for Museum of Modern Art quality. The way we’re running the company, the product design, the advertising, it all comes down to this: Let’s make it simple. Really simple.” Apple’s design mantra would remain the one featured on its first brochure: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

WayFirstsArtRunningSimpleQualityCompanyModernDesignProductsApproachUltimateSimplicityAdvertisingShootingApplesMuseumsMantrasSophisticationModern ArtProduct DesignBrochures
Book:Steve Jobs
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“Without pain, how could we know joy?' This is an old argument in the field of thinking about suffering and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries but suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not, in any way, affect the taste of chocolate.”

ThinkingKnowsWayDoePainJoySufferingInspiringExistenceCenturyFieldsTasteArgumentStupidityChocolateSophisticationWithout PainBroccoli
Book:The Fault in Our Stars
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“The cynics, they can only speak of the dark, of the obvious, and this is not hard. For all it’s supposed sophistication, it’s cynicism that’s simplistic. In a fallen world, how profound is to see the cracks? The sages and prophets, the disciples and revolutionaries, they are the ones up on the ramparts, up on the wall pointing to the dawn of the new Kingdom coming, pointing to the light that breaks through all things broken, pointing to redemption always rising and to the Blazing God who never sleeps.”

WorldHardLightSpeakDarkSleepBreakBrokenWallAll ThingsProfoundObviousKingdomsRedemptionDawnRevolutionaryFallenProphetRisingCracksCynicismDiscipleSagePointingBreak ThroughSophisticationBlazingNever SleepFallen World
Author:Ann Voskamp
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