“Stories now, to suit a public taste, must be half epigram, half pleasant vice.” StoriesHalfTasteVicesSuitsPleasantEpigrams Author:James Russell Lowell
“Taste and elegance, though they are reckoned only among the smaller and secondary morals, yet are of no mean importance in the regulations of life. A moral taste is not of force to turn vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue with something like the blandishments of pleasure, and it infinitely abates the evils of vice.” MeanTurnsEvilForcePleasureMoralVirtueTasteImportanceVicesRegulationElegance Book:Works Source: Works
“The vices of man, as full of horror as one might suppose them to be, contain the proof (if in nothing else but their infinitely expandable nature) of his taste for the infinite; only, it is a taste that often takes a wrong turn.” IfsMenMightTurnsTasteHorrorInfiniteVicesProofInfinityWrong Turn Author:Charles Baudelaire
“Many young people adopt pleasures for which they have not the least taste, only because they are called by that name.... You mustallow that drunkenness, which is equally destructive to body and mind, is a fine pleasure. Gaming, that draws you into a thousand scraps, leaves you penniless, and gives you the air and manners of an outrageous madman, is another most exquisite pleasure, is it not? As to running after women, the consequences of that vice are only the loss of one's nose, the total destruction of health, and, not unfrequently, the being run through the body.” PeopleGivingMindBodyRunningYoungNamesLossPleasureAirFineTasteThousandDrawsConsequenceDestructionDrinkingVicesMannersNosesDestructiveGamblingMind And BodyExquisiteOutrageousMadmenDrunkennessScrapGaming Author:Lord Chesterfield
“There is nothing that does not have something perfect in it; and it is the happiness of good taste to be able to find this perfection in all things. But there is a natural malignity that often discovers a vice in the midst of several virtues, in order to reveal and proclaim the discovery to all the world - a quality that is more the mark of a naturally evil temperament than a superior sense of discrimination. And it is truly an evil lot, to pass one's life always feeding off the imperfections of others.” WorldLifeDoeAbleOrderEvilNaturalPerfectQualityVirtueTasteDiscoveryAll ThingsPerfectionMarkVicesDiscriminationSuperiorsMidstImperfectionFeedingTemperamentGood Taste Author:Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
“My brother and I were able to fantasize far more extravagantly about our parents' tastes and desires, their aspirations and their vices, by scanning their bookcases than by snooping in their closest. Their selves were on their shelves.” SelfAbleDesireParentBrotherTasteVicesMy BrotherAspirationClosestShelvesSnoopingBookcasesScanning Author:Anne Fadiman