Refines Quotes & Sayings

Consider that the earth is a processing plant, a factory. Picture a tumbler used to polish rocks: a rolling drum filled with water and sand. Consider that your soul is dropped in as an ugly rock, some raw mineral or natural resource, crude oil, mineral ore. And all conflict and pain is the abrasive that rubs us, polishes our soul, refines us, teaches and finishes us over lifetime after lifetime. — Chuck Palahniuk

What woeful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me! But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines! — Alexander Pope

It's the struggle that refines them," he explained, "the challenge. Give them too much water, sunshine, and fertile soil and they grow fat and tasteless, like a Concord grape, appetizing only when saturated with sugar and made into jelly. Or they wither and die of boredom. Like people. The best ones are survivors. Stripped of chaff, refined by struggle and hardship, they're rendered complex and potent by their very endurance and ability to thrive in spite of deprivation. — J.T. Geissinger

It is amazing how much a thought expands and refines by being put into speech: I should think it could hardly know itself. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Lord takes raw materials, shapes them and refines them. — Joseph Smith Jr.

Progress is the hypocrisy which refines the vices. — Joris-Karl Huysmans

I have suffered into truth (...) Time refines all things that age with time — Aeschylus

In loving thou dost well, in passion not,
Wherein true love consists not: Love refines
The thoughts, and heart enlarges; hath his seat
In reason, and is judicious — John Milton

That night I wrote in my journal: Trees are schizophrenic now and beginning to lose control, enraged with the shock of their fiery new colors. Someone
was it van Gogh?
said that orange is the color of insanity. _Beauty is terror._ We want to be devoured by it, to hide ourselves in that fire which refines us. — Donna Tartt

All truth is valuable, and satirical criticism may be considered as useful when it rectifies error and improves judgment; he that refines the public taste is a public benefactor. — Samuel Johnson

Everything is sold to skill and labor; and where nature furnishes the materials, they are still rude and unfinished, till industry, ever active and intelligent, refines them from their brute state, and fits them for human use and convenience. — David Hume

Literature keeps presenting the most vicious things to us an entertainment, but what it appeals to is not any pleasure of these things, but the exhilaration of standing apart from them and being able to see them for what they are because they aren't really happening. The more exposed we are to this, the less likely we are to find an unthinking pleasure in cruel or evil things. As the eighteenth century said in a fine mouth-filling phrase, literature refines our sensibilities. — Northrop Frye

Many people falsely believe that if you want to be holy, you are not allowed to enjoy life ... Holiness brings us to life. It refines every human ability. Holiness doesn't dampen our emotions; it elevates them. Those who respond to God's call to holiness are the most joyful people in history. They have a richer, more abundant experience of life, and they love more deeply than most people can every imagine. They enjoy life, all of life. — Matthew Kelly

Soup puts the heart at ease, calms down the violence of hunger, eliminates the tension of the day, and awakens and refines the appetite. — Auguste Escoffier

I don't pretend to any exemption from the general lot of parental delusion-I mean that like most other parents I see my child through an atmosphere which illuminates, magnifies, and at the same time refines the object to a degree that amounts to a delusion ... — Sara Coleridge

O'Brien: How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?
Winston: By making him suffer.
O'Brien: Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but MORE merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. — George Orwell

As water downs ships but upholds leaves,
and as fires burn cities but refines gold,
so do life's troubles propel the meek to greatness
and the proud to ruin. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Contrary to what we've been taught, genes do not determine physical and character traits on their own. Rather, they interact with the environment in a dynamic, ongoing process that produces and continually refines an individual — David Shenk

In the etheric body are centered the forces animating man's physical vehicle, so disease is evidenced in the etheric before it manifests in the physical. The etheric, composed of finer, more attenuated substances than the physical, is corresponding amenable to vibratory influences. It is upon the former that harmony and rhythm have the most potent effect. Good music readjusts its molecular structure in accordance with the original divine plan, the archetype, and refines and accentuates it's vibratory currents. All forms of beauty and harmony increase this regenerating process. — Corinne Heline

Adversity purifies the spirit and refines the soul. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Reading is a sage way to bump up against life. Reading may be an escape, but it is not an escape from my own life and problems. It is an escape from the narrow boundaries of being only me. Reading in some wonderful ways helps me find out who I am. When she was a young girl Patricia MacLachlan's mother encouraged her to "read a book and find out who you are." And it is true that in some ways reading defines me as it refines me. Reading enlarges my vision of the world; it helps me understand someone who is different from me. It makes me bigger on the inside. We tend to see the world from our own perspective; it is good to see it from the eyes of others. Good literature helps me understand who I am in relation to what others experience. Far from being an escape from reality, good literature is a window into reality. I read to feel life. — Gladys M. Hunt

The task of the mind is to produce future, as the poet Paul Valery once put it. A mind is fundamentally an anticipator, an expectation-generator. It mines the present for clues, which it refines with the help of the materials it has saved from the past, turning them into anticipations of the future. And then it acts, rationally, on the basis of those hard-won anticipations. — Daniel Dennett

The furnace of affliction refines us from earthly drossiness, and softens us for the impression of God's own stamp. — Pierre Bayle

Nothing is so pregnant as cruelty; so multifarious, so rapid, so ever teeming a mother is unknown to the animal kingdom; each of her experiments provokes another and refines upon the last; though always progressive, yet always remote from the end. — Johann Kaspar Lavater

Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain. — George Orwell

In proportion as society refines, new books must ever become more necessary. — Oliver Goldsmith

Science taps the power of human understanding to look at the world and figure out how it works. It can't fail without humanity itself failing. Your magic could turn off, and you would hate that, but you would still be you. You would still be alive to regret it. But because science rests upon my human intelligence, it is the power that cannot be removed from me without removing me. Even if the laws of the universe change on me, so that all my knowledge is void, I'll just figure out the new laws, as has been done before. It's not a Muggle thing, it's a human thing, it just refines and trains the power you use every time you look at something you don't understand and ask 'Why? — Eliezer Yudkowsky

Who over-refines his argument brings himself to grief — Petrarch

Exercise not only tones the muscles, but also refines the brain and revives the soul. — Michael Treanor

Nothing refines like affection. Family jarring vulgarizes - family union elevates. — Charlotte Bronte

The storytelling gift is innate: one has it or one doesn't. But style is at least partly a learned thing: one refines it by looking and listening and reading and practice - by work. — Donna Tartt

Taste is an evolution and refinement of one's personal likes and dislikes. This evolution takes place with a constant curiosity and interest in everything. The editing consequently refines the choices and defines taste. — Norma Kamali

The world will brin its condemnation. They may even put their sword behind it. But we know that the highest courst has already ruled in our favor. 'If God is for us, who can be against us?' (Romans 8:31) No one successfully If they reject us, he accepts us. If they hate us, he loves us. If they imprison us, he sets our spirits free. If they afflict us, he refines us by the fire. If they kill us, he makes it a passage to paradise. They cannot defeat us. Christ has died. Christ has risen. We are alive in him. And in him there is no condemnation. We are forgiven, and we are righteous. 'And the righteous are bold as a lion.' (Proverbs 28:1) — John Piper

Your attitude defines your personality. Your personality refines your attitude. Together they make up your character. — Tanya Masse

The taste forever refines in the study of women. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Judo is the way to the most effective use of both physical and spiritual strength. By training you in attacks and defenses it refines your body and your soul and helps you make the spiritual essence of Judo a part of your very being. In this way you are able to perfect yourself and contribute something of value to the world. This is the final goal of Judo discipline. — Kano Jigoro

None more deceive themselves than they who think their religion is true and genuine, thought it refines not their spirits and reforms not their lives. — Benjamin Whichcote

Rejection has value. It teaches us when our work or our skillset is not good enough and must be made better. This is a powerful revelation, like the burning UFO wheel seen by the prophet Ezekiel, or like the McRib sandwich shaped like the Virgin Mary seen by the prophet Steve Jenkins. Rejection refines us. Those who fall prey to its enervating soul-sucking tentacles are doomed. Those who persist past it are survivors. Best ask yourself the question: what kind of writer are you? The kind who survives? Or the kind who gets asphyxiated by the tentacles of woe? — Chuck Wendig

You cannot gauge the intelligence of an American by talking with him; you must work with him. The American polishes and refines his way of doing things-even the most commonplace-the way the French of the 17th century polished their maxims. — Eric Hoffer

What is a memory? Not a storehouse, not a trunk in the attic, but an instrument that constantly refines the past into a narrative, accessible and acceptable to oneself. — Stanley Kauffmann

Unexpected hardship refines people; if you can accept it, both mind and body will benefit. If you cannot accept it, on the other hand, both mind and body will be harmed. — Zicheng Hong

Men are the inferior sex. Adam was made first, and the first effort is always the simpler and cruder one, non? With the second, one refines. — Loretta Chase

Throughout our lives, God's grace bestows temporal blessings and spiritual gifts that magnify our abilities and enrich our lives. His grace refines us. His grace helps us become our best selves. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Banish that fear; my flame can never waste,
For love sincere refines upon the taste. — Colley Cibber

God alone knows exactly what you and I must endure in order to form His character in us. It is in our trials that God refines us and removes our impurities. Like refined gold, when we pass through our trials, people will see His perfect reflection in us. — Wendy Blight

Hard-earned achievement brings a sense of self-worth. Work builds and refines character, creates beauty, and is the instrument of our service to one another and to God. A consecrated life is filled with work, sometimes repetitive, sometimes menial, sometimes unappreciated but always work that improves, orders, sustains, lifts, ministers, aspires. — D. Todd Christofferson

Service changes people. It refines, purifies, gives a finer perspective, and brings out the best in each one of us. It gets us looking outward instead of inward. Righteous service is the expression of true charity, such as the Savior showed. — Derek A. Cuthbert

Reading ...
inspires,
enlightens,
nurtures,
refines,
educates,
informs,
transforms,
persuades,
challenges,
engages,
entertains,
mesmerizes,
captivates,
gratifies,
rewards,
quiets,
and calms.
Granted, it won't get the dishes done,
but sacrifices must be made. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Work builds and refines character, creates beauty, and is the instrument of our service to one another and to God. — D. Todd Christofferson

by knowledge the privilege to BE! His insight refines him. The beauty of nature shines in his own breast. Man is greater that he can see this, and the universe less, because Time and Space relations vanish as laws are known. Here again we are impressed and even daunted by the immense Universe to be explored. "What we know, is a point to what we do not know." Open any recent journal of science, and weigh the problems suggested concerning Light, Heat, Electricity, Magnetism, Physiology, Geology, and judge whether the interest of natural science is likely to be soon exhausted. Passing by many particulars of the discipline of nature, we must not omit to specify two. The exercise of the Will or the — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Your challenge in life does not define you but only refines you". — Abdulazeez Henry Musa

There are some who believe that because they have made mistakes, they can no longer fully partake of the blessings of the gospel. How little they understand the purposes of the Lord. One of the great blessings of living the gospel is that it refines us and helps us learn from our mistakes. We "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God," yet the Atonement of Jesus Christ has the power to make us whole when we repent. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

To be thoroughly imbued, with the liberal arts refines the manners, and makes men to be mild and gentle in their conduct. — Ovid

Patience - the ability to put our desires on hold for a time - is a precious and rare virtue. We want what we want, and we want it now. Therefore, the very idea of patience may seem unpleasant and, at times, bitter. Nevertheless, without patience, we cannot please God; we cannot become perfect. Indeed, patience is a purifying process that refines understanding, deepens happiness, focuses action, and offers hope for peace. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

We must praise God no matter what is happening in our lives. We should praise Him even in the midst of suffering because it strengthens us and refines our faith in Him. — Stormie O'martian

Sport, properly directed, develops character, makes a person courageous, a generous loser, and a gracious victor; it refines the senses, gives intellectual penetration, and steels the will to endurance. It is not merely a physical development then. Sport, rightly understood, is an occupation of the whole person, and while perfecting the body as an instrument of the mind, it also makes the mind itself a more refined instrument for the search and communication of truth ... . — Pope Pius XII

Failure does not define us, it refines us. — Steve Knox

Nothing of what you go through in life gets lost. Everything teaches, refines and empowers you. — Maria Teresa De Donato

Poetry reveals to us the loveliness of nature, brings back the freshness of youthful feelings, reviews the relish of simple pleasures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the springtime of our being, refines youthful love, strengthens our interest in human nature, by vivid delineations of its tenderest and softest feelings, and through the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps faith to lay hold on the future life. — William Ellery Channing

Good fiction reveals feeling, refines events, locates importance and, though its methods are as mysterious as they are varied, intensifies the experience of living our own lives. — Vincent Canby