#refined

I cannot be much pleased without an appearance of truth; at least of possibility I wish the history to be natural though the sentiments are refined; and the characters to be probable, though their behaviour is excelling. ↗

— Frances Burney

#behaviour #cannot #characters #history #i

It seems unpleasantly refined to put things off till someone knows. ↗

— William Empson

#off #put #refined #seems #someone

Our demand for meat, dairy and refined carbohydrates - the world consumes one billion cans or bottles of Coke a day - our demand for these things, not our need, our want - drives us to consume way more calories than are good for us. ↗

— Mark Bittman

#bottles #calories #cans #carbohydrates #coke

Genius is nothing more than common faculties refined to a greater intensity. There are no astonishing ways of doing astonishing things. All astonishing things are done by ordinary materials. ↗

— Benjamin Haydon

#common #doing #done #faculties #genius

Barack Obama's life was so much simpler in 2009. Back then, he had refined the cold act of blaming others for the bad economy into an art form. Deficits? Blame Bush's tax cuts. Spending? Blame the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. No business investment? Blame Wall Street. ↗

— John Sununu

#afghanistan #art #art form #back #bad

Over the course of those 12 episodes we discarded what didn't work and kept what did and that refined it. ↗

— Dave Rowntree

#did #discarded #episodes #kept #over

She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot. ↗

— Mark Twain

#keeps #kind #parrot #person #quite

Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow. You are here to realize your inner divinity and manifest your innate enlightenment. ↗

— Morihei Ueshiba

#divinity #enlightenment #everyone #follow #here

A contemporary artist can use the findings of all epochs and all styles, from the most primitive literary expressions up to the most refined products of the baroque. ↗

— Juan Goytisolo

#baroque #contemporary #epochs #expressions #findings

The use of refined petroleum as fuel, which began in the 1850s, freed hundreds of millions of people from the toil of centuries, gave hundreds of millions more a life of ease and plenty, and, by allowing great cities to feed themselves from every corner of the world, multiplied the population of the earth fivefold. ↗

— James Buchan

#began #centuries #cities #corner #earth