Quotes About Refinement

if some natures have to be refined by the sun, & some by the furnace (the less genial ones--) both means are to be recognized as good; . . . however different in pleasurableness & painfulness, & tho' furnace-fire leaves scorched streaks upon the fruit--.

Even Matthew, whose taste did not run that way at all, could see that he was beautiful, his black hair slicked back, his suit impeccably tailored and his claret tie fastened with a silver stickpin, a fleur-de-lis that matched the discreet medallions on his cordovon loafers.

He had not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his bones, and leanness goes a great way towards gentility.

Why use two (or more) when one (or fewer) will do, is the principle that William of Ockham introduced into the medieval thought process. It grew out of his refinement of Aristotle's logic and set off a revolution not only in philosophy, but in politics and religion. Before he died, Ockham's razor would undercut the foundations of the medieval Church.

I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need.

There is grace in elegance, but beyond grace there is perfection

The enjoyment of the senses becomes more refined when there's more purification in a person. The smallest thing can be enjoyed, but the danger lies in wanting it. This wanting — the craving — brings the unsatisfactoriness because the wanting can never be fully satisfied.

I think that's what most of us rappers do too often. We put too much information in some of our albums that could actually be on the next ones.

It's rare that you cut out something that is really good. You screen all of it, and when the audience doesn't respond, you cut out whatever is holding the story down.

You work on an idea, your first interpretation is very raw and you work it and you work it and it gets polished and polished. It gets to a certain level and then it comes down off that peak.

Class is real. It can't be faked.

I like to play like that, with beauty and grace.

I can say that I have lived very gracefully.

That's the great thing for coaches... we'll find more things where we can get better.

The finger lick is just a really bad habit - I do it all the time. My wife Ashley is going to kill me if I do it at dinner one more time. I look like an animal about to dig in.

Gold and diamonds are nice, but clean, crisp, controlled water has long been the preeminent hallmark of the rich.

I thought I was good after a few years. After ten years I realized I was still improving.

The truly experienced person, the refined person, delights in the ordinary.

Everything said in the beginning must be said better than in the beginning.

There was nothing financial, still less sordid, in her previsions: she cared about what were considered refinements, and not about the money that was to pay for them.

dream. But these kinds of inspiration Lydgate regarded as rather vulgar and vinous compared with the imagination that reveals subtle actions inaccessible by any sort of lens, but tracked in that outer darkness through long pathways of necessary sequence by the inward light which is the last refinement of Energy, capable of bathing even the ethereal atoms in its ideally illuminated space.

Adapting a book is the most difficult thing because half the time you are wondering what to remove.

The sexiest thing that a woman can do, wear, and say all fall under one word to me: subtlety. To be subtle in the things that she does and the things she says and the things she wears - I appreciate the details.

There's a great deal of stripping away; in early drafts, I may say the same thing two or three times, and each may be appropriate, but I try to pick the best and improve it. I work on sound a great deal, and I will change a word or two, revise punctuation and line breaks, looking for the sound I want.