Refined Living Quotes

Since the same human mire remains beneath, does not all civilization reduce itself to the superiority of smelling nice and living well?

To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization.

I feel that my environment reflects my belief in the grace and art and elegance of living simply.

A life of peace, purity and refinement leads to a calm and untroubled old age.

Taste and elegance, though they are reckoned only among the smaller and secondary morals, yet are of no mean importance in the regulations of life. A moral taste is not of force to turn vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue with something like the blandishments of pleasure, and it infinitely abates the evils of vice.

Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very foundation of refinement.

I was originally supposed to become an engineer but the thought of having to expend my creative energy on things that make practical everyday life even more refined, with a loathsome capital gain as the goal, was unbearable to me.

I consider a house without books or a piano to be unfurnished.

It's too hard a life for me. I could only do it - check out in that sense - if I checked out somewhere that was luxurious and within hailing distance of civilization.