Cultural Sophistication Quotes & Sayings

Happiness springs up from within. Do not seek it without. — Ogwo David Emenike

There is no kind of experience in which a Christian has a right to refuse to
praise God, for 'all things work together for good to them that love God.' — A.C. Dixon

May those that are excluded because they are different find a home such as this in which they are accepted and appreciated as they really are." "Amen," they chorused. — Alan McCluskey

It's been a very old thing for people to gather together and laugh at stuff. The first comedian in America really was Abraham Lincoln. He used to go to a pub near where he lived and stand in front of the fire and he packed the place every night and he would just talk and bust everybody in their guts. He was just a hilarious speaker and that's what he did. — Louis C.K.

The difference between a crime of evil and a crime of illness is the difference between a sin and a symptom. — Malcolm Gladwell

He feared, in his secret heart, that one day in company the baby would sit up and speak; that it would engage his eyes, appraise him, and say, 'You prick. — Hilary Mantel

We exist in this weirdly schizo culture, where sex is everywhere in the media, and yet, at the same time, you don't sit down and have a conversation about what you did in bed last night with your friends. Despite the ubiquity of sex, it's still a taboo when it comes to day-to-day conversation. — Mary Roach

Stories serve multiple purposes. At a basic level they are great entertainment, which is essential for living a happy and healthy life, but on a deeper level stories help us explore issues that are otherwise difficult to address. On one hand a good book helps us escape our troubles, and on the other hand it can help us face up to those troubles by bringing real issues to the fore, often in a more manageable way, since the problems are experienced vicariously through the eyes of another. — Dean F. Wilson

My parents genuinely loved Vienna, and in later years I learned from them why the city exerted a powerful hold on them and other Jews. My parents loved the dialect of Vienna, its cultural sophistication, and artistic values. — Eric Kandel

Everything I ever learnt as a small boy came from my father, and I never found anything he ever told me to be wrong or worthless. The simple lessons he taught me are as sharp and clear in my mind as if I had heard them only yesterday. — Irving Pichel

Life is a chain of happenings that are either purely random or predestined. — Steven Redhead

I've faced my fears so many times in simulations, but that doesn't mean I'm ready to face them in reality. — Veronica Roth

If you ask people to do things and they usually don't get around to them, stop asking yourself, "What's the matter with people these days?" Instead, ask yourself, "What's the matter with me? What am I doing or failing to do that causes people to give me empty promises?" — Ed Bliss

A taste for the miniature was one aspect of an orderly spirit. Another was a passion for secrets... — Ian McEwan

I'm one of those people who're good at everything but I'm not great at anything. I thought I'd be a chef or a teacher. — Jesse Lacey

No matter what your cultural sophistication or what language you speak, everyone can understand images. — Tibor Kalman

Great literature has always been written in a like spirit, and is, indeed, the Forgiveness of Sin, and when we find it becoming the Accusation of Sin, as in George Eliot, who plucks her Tito in pieces with as much assurance as if he had been clockwork, literature has begun to change into something else. — William Butler Yeats

I can say it, but it doesn't seem convincing to most people. I can call it an 'injustice,' but that doesn't always sink in either. You have to understand the nature of the culture in New York. Words that are equal to the pain of the poor are pretty easily discredited. A quarter of the truth, stated with lots of indirection, is regarded as more seemly.

Even when people do accept the idea of 'injustice,' there are ways to live with it without it causing you to change a great deal in your life. A mildly embarrassed toleration of injustice is an elemental part of cultural sophistication here. the stile is, 'Oh yes. We know all that. So tell us something new.' There's a kind of cultivated weariness in this. Talking about injustice, I am told, is 'tiresome' unless you do it in a way that sounds amusing. — Jonathan Kozol