Philistines Quotes

38 quotes by 32 authors

Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke. — Ambrose Bierce
In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us… — Susan Sontag
It's only because I feel like such a philistine spending all that time in hair and makeup that I started to knit. I used to… — Felicity Huffman
If one defends the bourgeois, philistine virtues, one does not defend them merely from the demonism or bohemianism of the artist but from the present… — Lionel Trilling
The anarch is oriented to facts, not ideas. He fights alone, as a free man, and would never dream of sacrificing himself to having one… — Ernst Junger
A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed. Any prelude or fugue of Bach can be played at any tempo,… — Dmitri Shostakovich
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
To speak the truth is the most difficult of all arts, for in its "pure" form, not connected with the interests of individuals, groups, classes,… — Maxim Gorky
The philistine provides the best definition of art. Anything that makes him rage is first class. — Louis Dudek
PHILISTINE, n. One whose mind is the creature of its environment, following the fashion in thought, feeling and sentiment. He is sometimes learned, frequently prosperous,… — Ambrose Bierce
Next to the defeated politician, the writer is the most vocal and inventive griper on earth. He sees hardship and unfairness wherever he looks. His… — Peter Mayle
When temptation comes your way, name that boastful, deceitful giant â€œGoliath!â€ and do with it as David did to the Philistine of Gath. — Gordon B. Hinckley
A man who has no mental needs, because his intellect is of the narrow and normal amount, is, in the strict sense of the word,… — Arthur Schopenhauer
The enemies of living life; outdated little liberals, afraid of their own independence; lackeys of thought, enemies of the person and freedom, decrepit preachers of… — Fyodor Dostoevsky
The sign of a Philistine age is the cry of immorality against art. — Oscar Wilde
Any test that turns on what is offensive to the communitys standards is too loose, too capricious, too destructive of freedom of expression to be… — William O. Douglas
Al forms of consensus about ''great'' books and ''perennial'' problems, once stabilized, tend to deteriorate eventually into something philistine. The real life of the mind… — Susan Sontag
One of the surest signs of the Philistine is his reverence for the superior tastes of those who put him down. — Pauline Kael
Trinidad may seem complex, but to anyone who knows it, it is a simple, colonial, philistine society. — V.S. Naipaul
A country of inveterate, backwoods, thick-headed, egotistic philistines — Vladimir Lenin

Who Wrote These Philistines Quotes

32 authors contributed a total of 38 Philistines Quotes, led by these top contributors: