Culture and Elegance

Culture and Elegance

lxxxvii

Man is a savage by nature and can rise above the beast only through culture. Therefore, culture makes man, and the more human he is, the higher he rises. It is because of this that Greece was able to call the rest of the world barbarians. Ignorance is very immature. Nothing contributes more to culture than knowledge. But knowledge is also crude without elegance. Not only the intellect, but also the desires and, above all, the conversation, must be graceful. Some are born graceful, both internally and externally, in thought, in greeting, in dress, which is the skin of the soul, and in talent, which is its fruit. On the other hand, there are those who are so vulgar that even their excellencies are so unbearably and savagely untidy that everything is spoiled.

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