AtomicQuote

Joseph Epstein Quotes

The acquisition of culture requires repose, sitting quietly in a room with a book, or alone with one's thoughts even any crowded concert or art museum.

Joseph Epstein

The acquisition of culture requires repose, sitting quietly in a room with a book, or alone with one's thoughts even any crowded concert or art museum.

Tags: introverts, solitude

Not to like ice cream is to show oneself uninterested in food.

Joseph Epstein

Not to like ice cream is to show oneself uninterested in food.

Tags: food, ice cream, like, show

About Author
Joseph Epstein (October 16, 1911 – April 11, 1944), also known as Colonel Gilles and as Joseph Andrej, was a Polish-born Jewish communist activist and a French Resistance leader during World War II. He was executed by the Germans.

It is difficult to be ambitious without also being envious.

Joseph Epstein

It is difficult to be ambitious without also being envious.

I believe it was Gayelord Hauser, the nutritionist, who said, 'You are what you eat,' but if you happen to be an intellectual, you are what you quote.

Joseph Epstein

I believe it was Gayelord Hauser, the nutritionist, who said, 'You are what you eat,' but if you happen to be an intellectual, you are what you quote.

Tags: humor, quotatious

There is no word equivalent to 'cuckold' for women.

Joseph Epstein

There is no word equivalent to 'cuckold' for women.

Tags: men, women

The study of the past is the main portal through which culture is acquired.

Joseph Epstein

The study of the past is the main portal through which culture is acquired.

Tags: heritage, history

Of all the seven deadly sins, only Envy is no fun at all.

Joseph Epstein

Of all the seven deadly sins, only Envy is no fun at all.

That envy and a sense of injustice are not always that easily distinguished, let alone extricated, one from the other.

Joseph Epstein

That envy and a sense of injustice are not always that easily distinguished, let alone extricated, one from the other.

Culture means, I think, that you have widened your experience enough through reading and through being a little bit thoughtful about these things that it has changed your outlook in some ways. And not...

Joseph Epstein

Culture means, I think, that you have widened your experience enough through reading and through being a little bit thoughtful about these things that it has changed your outlook in some ways. And not...

Tags: culture, reading, thoughtful

The English philosopher Michael Oakeshott notes that one of the signs of being cold today is that one knows what one doesn't have to know.

Joseph Epstein

The English philosopher Michael Oakeshott notes that one of the signs of being cold today is that one knows what one doesn't have to know.

Tags: curiosity, discernment, focus

Those who consider themselves good teachers probably aren't.

Joseph Epstein

Those who consider themselves good teachers probably aren't.

Tags: humility, pride

[Snobbishness] is the desire for what divides men and the inability to value what unites them.

Joseph Epstein

[Snobbishness] is the desire for what divides men and the inability to value what unites them.

Tags: human nature, snobbery

For reasons no one has yet explained, the Internet is at once riveting and a great killer of concentration.

Joseph Epstein

For reasons no one has yet explained, the Internet is at once riveting and a great killer of concentration.

Tags: focus, technology

And it is a good thing that many ideas have a relatively short shelf-life. Some because they are bad, even pernicious ideas: the Master Race, the class struggle, the Oedipus complex, and Socialism are...

Joseph Epstein

And it is a good thing that many ideas have a relatively short shelf-life. Some because they are bad, even pernicious ideas: the Master Race, the class struggle, the Oedipus complex, and Socialism are...

Conservatives and those on the right are usually willing to settle for thinking themselves correct on political issues; those on the left have always needed to feel not so much that they are correct b...

Joseph Epstein

Conservatives and those on the right are usually willing to settle for thinking themselves correct on political issues; those on the left have always needed to feel not so much that they are correct b...

Tags: conservatism, conservatives, government, leftism, liberalism, liberals, opinions, politics, progressives, rightism

Not everyone strives to be fashionable. I don't, and I believe I succeed.

Joseph Epstein

Not everyone strives to be fashionable. I don't, and I believe I succeed.

Vladimir Nabokov, contemning readers who "identified" with characters in fiction, remarked that the best readers identify with the artist.

Joseph Epstein

Vladimir Nabokov, contemning readers who "identified" with characters in fiction, remarked that the best readers identify with the artist.

Tags: bible, exposition, reading

The reason 'closure' is a cliche is that it is used too often, too imprecisely, and doesn't in any case reflect reality. In reality, such closure in broken friendships and much else in life is rarely...

Joseph Epstein

The reason 'closure' is a cliche is that it is used too often, too imprecisely, and doesn't in any case reflect reality. In reality, such closure in broken friendships and much else in life is rarely...