Quotes by : Joseph Epstein

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

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

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

It is difficult to be ambitious without also being envious.

Culture means, I think, that you have widened your experience enough through reading and through being....

Those who consider themselves good teachers probably aren't.

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

Conservatives and those on the right are usually willing to settle for thinking themselves correct on....

The acquisition of culture requires repose, sitting quietly in a room with a book, or alone with one's....

The English philosopher Michael Oakeshott notes that one of the signs of being cold today is that one....