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~~ I am not the author of the following written material, and I lay no claim to be the author. ~~
2. A truly elegant taste is generally accompanied with anexcellency of heart.
3. A well-cultivated mind is, so to speak, made up of all the minds of preceding ages; it is only one single mind which has been educated during all this time.
4. After a spirit of discernment the next rarest things in the world are diamonds and pearls.
5. Appreciation, whether of nature, or books, or art, or men, depends very much on temperament. What is beauty or genius or greatness to one, is far from being so to another.
6. As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without cultivation, so the mind without culture can never produce good fruit.
7. Between good sense and good taste there is the difference between cause and effect.
8. By appreciation we make excellence in others our own property.
9. Clearness ornaments profound thoughts.
10. Cultivation to the mind, is as necessary as food to the body.
11. Culture implies all that which gives the mind possession of its own powers; as languages to the critic, telescope to the astronomer.
12. Culture is properly described as the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection.
13. Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why.
14. Culture is the sum of all the forms of art, of love and of thought, which, in the course of centuries, have enabled man to be less enslaved.
15. Culture is to know the best that has been said and thought in the world.
16. Culture, like the kingdom of heaven, lies within us, and not in foreign galleries and books.
17. Delicacy of taste is favourable to love and friendship, by confining our choice to few people, and making us indifferent to the company and conversation of the greater party of men.
18. Do not become attached to the things you like, do not cherish aversion to the things you dislike. Sorrow, fear and bondage come from one's likes and dislikes.
19. Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
20. Enhance and intensify one's vision of that synthes is of truth and beauty which is the highest and deepest reality.
21. Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.
22. From the Emperor down to the masses of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything else.
23. Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius; without taste, genius is only sublime folly.
24. Good taste come more from the judgment than from the mind.
25. Good taste consists first upon fitness.
26. Good taste is better than bad taste, but bad taste is better than no taste.
27. He who has no opinion of his own, but depends upon the opinion and taste of others, is a slave.
28. I am very sure that any man of common understanding may, by culture, care, attention, and labour, make himself what-ever he pleases, except a great poet.
29. It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill and cease exertion in the proper place, than to expend both indiscriminately.
30. It is in refinement and elegance that the civilized man differs from the savage.
31. It matters little whether a man be mathematically, or philologically, or artistically cultivated, so he be but cultivated.
32. Love of beauty is taste.
33. Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.
34. No medicines can cure the vulgar man.
35. Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste.
36. Partial culture runs to the ornate; extreme culture to simplicity.
37. People care more about being thought to have good taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.
38. Refinement creates beauty everywhere. It is the grossness of the spectator that discovers anything like grossness in the object.
39. Style is the dress of thoughts.
40. Style is the perfection of good sense.
41. Subtlety may deceive you; integrity never will.
42. Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
43. Taste depends upon those finer emotions which make the organization of the soul.
44. Taste has never been corrupted by simplicity.
45. Taste is pursued at a less expense than fashion.
46. Taste is the enemy of creativeness.
47. Taste is the feminine of genius.
48. Taste is the literary conscience of the soul.
49. Taste is the mind's tact.
50. Taste is, so to speak, the microscope of judgment.
51. Taste may be compared to that exquisite sense of the bee, which instantly discovers and extracts the quint essence of every flower, and disregards all the rest of it.
52. That only can with propriety be styled refinement which, by strengthening the intellect, purifies the manners.
53. The fashion wears out more apparel than the man.
54. The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling.
55. The great law of culture: Let each become all that he was created capable of being.
56. The more refined one is, the more unhappy.
57. The poet must be alike polished by an intercourse with the world as with the studies of taste; one to whom labour is negligence, refinement a science, and art a nature.
58. The same refinement which brings us new pleasures, exposes us to new pains.
59. The value of culture is its effect on character. It avails nothing unless it ennobles and strengthens that. Its use is for life. Its aim is not beauty, but goodness.
60. There is no disputing about taste.
61. To appreciate the noble is a gain which can never be torn from us.
62. To love one that is great, is almost to be great one's self.
63. Too great refinement is false delicacy, and true delicacy is solid refinement.
64. Whatever are the benefits of fortune, they yet require apalate fit to relish and taste them.
65. With many readers brilliancy of style passes for affluence of thought; they mistake buttercups in the grass for immeasurable mines of gold under ground.
66. You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some with you.