Trinidad may seem complex, but to anyone who knows it, it is a simple, colonial, philistine society. — V. S. Naipaul Copy Share Image
He was the mightiest of Puritans no less than of philistines who first insisted that beauty is only skin deep. — Louis Kronenberger Copy Share Image
The society of the Culture-Philistines makes life a burden to exceptional men. — Georg Brandes Copy Share Image
A philistine is habitually bored and looks for things that won't bore him. An artist finds things boring, but is never bored. — Karl Kraus Copy Share Image
A country of inveterate, backwoods, thick-headed, egotistic philistines — Vladimir Lenin Copy Share Image
Those Eggheadsareterrible Philistines. A realgood head is not oval but round. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
If one defends the bourgeois, philistine virtues, one does not defend them merely from the demonism or bohemianism of the artist but… — Lionel Trilling Copy Share Image
England has become a squalid, uncomfortable, ugly place ... an intolerant, racist, homophobic, narrow-minded, authoritarian, rat-hole run by vicious, suburban-minded, materialistic philistines. — Hanif Kureishi Copy Share Image
Philistine - a word which I understand properly to denote indifference to the higher intellectual interests. The word may also be defined,… — Leslie Stephen Copy Share Image
You know, the Philistines have long since discarded the rack and stake as a means of suppressing the opinions they feared: they've… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
No difference exists between American and European manners. A proletarian from Chicago can be just as Philistine as an English duke. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
I think a philistine environment should be bracing for young artists. You have to make your own enjoyment, you've got to make… — Michael Longley Copy Share Image
It's only because I feel like such a philistine spending all that time in hair and makeup that I started to knit.… — Felicity Huffman Copy Share Image
PHILISTINE, n. One whose mind is the creature of its environment, following the fashion in thought, feeling and sentiment. He is sometimes… — Ambrose Bierce Copy Share Image
It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of Philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical… — Karl Marx Copy Share Image
Here is an example to help you understand the efficacy of the Rosary. You remember the story of David who vanquished Goliath.… — Columba Marmion Copy Share Image
I could go on and on. But that is just what gardening is, going on and on. My philistine of a husband… — Margery Fish Copy Share Image
That is another chamber of my heart that shows no electrical activity - the chamber that used to flicker into life when… — Nick Hornby Copy Share Image
A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed. Any prelude or fugue of Bach can be played… — Anonymous Copy Share Image
It's extraordinary to think that if you walked into a room and said you had never heard of Hamlet, you would be… — Robert Winston Copy Share Image
Do you recall the laughter of the Philistines at the helpless Sampson? You can hear the echo of that laughter to-day, as… — Abbott Eliot Kittredge Copy Share Image
You all have learned reliance On the sacred teachings of Science, So I hope, through life, you will never decline In spite… — Cole Porter Copy Share Image
Any test that turns on what is offensive to the community's standards is too loose, too capricious, too destructive of freedom of… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
It is characteristic of the barbarian ... to insist upon seeing a thing "as it is." The desire testifies that he has… — Richard M. Weaver Copy Share Image
The costs of an ignorance of science are nor just practical ones like misbegotten policies, forgone cures, and a unilateral disarmament in… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
A man who has no mental needs, because his intellect is of the narrow and normal amount, is, in the strict sense… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
Why can't the black man have a God? What's so wrong when a black man says his God will protect him form… — Malcolm X Copy Share Image
“Life is seen as an ongoing war between art and philistinism - and although the philistines may win some of the battles,… — Helon Habila Copy Share Image
A philistine is a full-grown person whose interests are of a material and commonplace nature, and whose mentality is formed of the… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
A great affliction of all Philistines is that idealities afford them no entertainment, but to escape from boredom they are always in… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
When temptation comes your way, name that boastful, deceitful giant “Goliath!” and do with it as David did to the Philistine of… — Gordon B. Hinckley Copy Share Image
With all due respect to all philistines, the dictatorship of the proletariat does just consist in "giving a hiding" to the classes… — Leon Trotsky Copy Share Image
Philistine must have originally meant, in the mind of those who invented the nickname, a strong, dogged, unenlightened opponent of the chosen… — Matthew Arnold Copy Share Image
“The suicide committed by Sampson was partly determined by the craftiness of Delilah and partly decided by the disobedience of Sampson. Satan… — Israelmore Ayivor Copy Share Image
Did you ever think, Clarice, why the Philistines don't understand you? It's because you are the answer to Samson's riddle. You are… — Thomas Harris Copy Share Image
I'm quite squeamish, really. I'm philistine and unsophisticated - not because of my great discerning palate but other reasons. Some are moral… — Ricky Gervais Copy Share Image
What passed for society was a loud, giddy whirl of thieves and pretentious hustlers, a dull sideshow full of quacks and clowns… — Hunter S. Thompson Copy Share Image
I started to shed the monstrous aesthetic affectation of my youth so as to make room for the monstrous philistine postures of… — Quentin Crisp Copy Share Image
It's absolutely philistine not to recognize what a great book 'An American Dream' is. Norman Mailer is his own worst enemy, and… — Germaine Greer Copy Share Image
