Savoir Quotes & Sayings

Knowledge [savoir] in general cannot be reduced to science, nor even to learning [connaissance]. Learning is the set of statements which, to the exclusion of all other statements, denote or describe objects and may be declared true or false. Science is a subset of learning. It is also composed of denotative statements, but imposes two supplementary conditions on their acceptability: the objects to which they refer must be available for repeated access, in other words, they must be accessible in explicit conditions of observation; and it must be possible to decide whether or not a given statement pertains to the language judged relevant by the experts. — Jean-Francois Lyotard

It was the sort of house that glows with substance and savoir vivre in those advertisements for the best Scotch. It had wonderful bones. — Robert A. Metzger

Maddie took the top of her egg off. The hot bright yolk was like summer sun breaking through cloud. The first daffodil in the snow. A gold sovereign wrapped in a white silk handkerchief. She dipped her spoon in it and licked it. — Elizabeth Wein

We are distracted from our greatness because are greatness is what scares us. Right where you are ... God is. — Iyanla Vanzant

You see, I am not very good in company. I am clumsy. I am shy. [ ... ] I always say the wrong thing. I upset water jugs. I am unlucky."
"We all do these things when we are young. The poise, the savoir faire, comes later. — Agatha Christie

In saying that the truth is both said and not said by the philosopher (said and not said in the form of stammering), Aristotle was still close to the methods of interpretation used by grammarians in their commentaries on the poets. Symbolic or allegorical methods pointing out what was deliberately hidden by Homer behind the figure of Nestor or Ulysses.

But there is a difference however - and a crucial one - which is that for Aristotle the equivocation of the said and the not-said, this distance without gap which means that the truth is both hidden and present in the philosopher's words, this light that is shadow, is not the effect of an oracular kind of intentional secret or prudent reserve. If philosophers do not speak the truth, this is not because their indulgence wishes to protect men from its terrible face; it is because they lack a certain knowledge (savoir). — Michel Foucault

I was less successful in my attempts to effect preventive vaccination against typhus by using the virus and in trying to produce large quantities of serum using large animals. — Charles Jules Henry Nicole

The problem is that in our country, they make it almost impossible for politicians to win anything. In England it's easier to win a libel suit. — Rand Paul

To know how to dissemble is the knowledge of kings.
[Fr., Savoir dissimuler est le savoir des rois.] — Cardinal Richelieu

I think food is getting lighter and healthier because people eat out so often. It's about quality ingredients because that is the root of good food. — Jean-Georges Vongerichten

The Hell's Angels as a group are often willfully stupid, but they are not without savoir-faire, and their predilection for travelling in packs is a long way from being all showbiz. Nor is it entirely due to warps and defects in their collective personality. — Hunter S. Thompson

When I listen to my work, I think, what's so inflammatory about it? It's not really that dissonant. A lot of people who used to hate my stuff have come round to it. — Stephen Sondheim

Life is God's art. — Larry Norman

France can compete with the Hollywood studios in terms of animation savoir-faire, but not in terms of box-office figures. France is a small country, and the Americans are the masters of the world - for cinema, it's true. — Michel Ocelot

People who dress up in bizarre costumes have a savoir-vivre - not to mention the sort of personality disorder - that he admires. — Thomas Pynchon

In Marrakech, Arabian open-heartedness is served up with a generous dose of pan-African mysticism, a dollop of French savoir-vivre, and a garnish of Moorish grace. The vibe is irresistible to meaning-of-life seekers and international hipsters looking for a scene. — Vivian Swift

He had that combination of savoir-faire with a sort of well-groomed coarseness which is not uncommon in young doctors. — G.K. Chesterton

In order to fix the vocabulary, let us say that we will call knowledge-connaissance the system that allows desire and knowledge-savoir to be given a prior unity, reciprocal belonging, and co-naturalness. And we will call knowledge-savoir that which we have to drag from the interiority of knowledge-connaissance in order to rediscover in it the object of a willing, the end of a desire, the instrument of a domination, the stake of a struggle. — Michel Foucault

Il ne faut point donner d'esprit a' ses personnages; mais savoir les placer dans des circonstances qui leur en donnent. You should not give wit to your characters, but know instead how to put them in situations which will make them witty. — Denis Diderot

Simplicity is a pleasant thing in children, or at any age, but it is not necessarily admirable, nor is affectation altogether a thing of evil. To be normal, to be at home in the world, with a prospect of power, usefulness, or success, the person must have that imaginative insight into other minds that underlies tact and savoir-faire, morality and beneficence. This insight involves sophistication, some understanding and sharing of the clandestine impulses of human nature. A simplicity that is merely the lack of this insight indicates a sort of defect. — Charles Horton Cooley

The study a posteriori of the distribution of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself. — William James

Redeless (adj.) Not knowing what to do in an emergency. Redeless has a variety of meanings, but this is the one that speaks to me the most. In yet another case of the rare thing enjoying a common word and vice versa, it is interesting to note that redeless has largely (or entirely) fallen by the linguistic wayside, while savoir faire (which originally meant "knowing what to do in an emergency") has survived. Redonation — Ammon Shea

A man obsessed: obsessed with perfection, sharing, aesthetics, taste, savoir-faire, and much more. — Alain Ducasse

Not all forms of abuse leave bruises. — Danielle Steel

Batman knew what it was like to trip balls without seriously losing his shit, and that savoir faire added another layer to his outlaw sexiness and alluring aura of decadence and wealth. — Grant Morrison

They were lounging, in fact, in an almost ostentatious manner, as if to say to passersby like myself, Look uponst my exquisite lounging, foolish mortal, and mourn that you will never lounge with such cosmopolitan savoir faire. — Kevin Hearne

Amer savoir, celui qu'on tire du voyage! Bitter is the knowledge gained in travelling. — Charles Baudelaire

I knew that I just didn't have it in me to give up, even if I sometimes felt like a fool for continuing to believe. — Misty Copeland

After the leaves have fallen, we return
To a plain sense of things. It is as if
We had come to an end of the imagination,
Inanimate in an inert savoir. — Wallace Stevens

Now, a corpse, poor thing, is an untouchable and the process of decay is, of all pieces of bad manners, the vulgarest imaginable. For a corpse is, by definition, a person absolutely devoid of savoir vivre. — Aldous Huxley

The practice of any art demands more than 'mere savoir faire'. One must not only be in love with what one does, one must also know how to make love. In love self is obliterated. Only the beloved counts. — Henry Miller

We do all these things when we are young. The poise, the savoir faire, it comes later. — Agatha Christie

Ash should take the ladies, because he's charming."
Ash looked pleased. Jared raised his eyebrows.
"Are you saying that I'm not a charmer?"
"You are very dear to me, but you have all the savoir faire of a wildebeest," Kami told him.
"A wildebeest," Jared repeated.
"A dashingly handsome wildebeest," Kami assured him. — Sarah Rees Brennan