How To Use Philistine In A Sentence

In fact the Philistine plain (which, however, we were now soon to leave) was always noted for the plague of flies, and this gave rise to the ancient deprecatory worship of Baal-zebub, "the lord of flies," by that people; there is still a village upon the plain named Byeways in Palestine
Mr. Weber is not a moralist and does not claim that, by preferring Tchaikovsky to, say, the current-day atonalist Charles Wuorinen, we are philistines or reactionaries. That Melody Sounds Familiar
There were some amazing works there, although I'm sure they were completely wasted on my philistine eyes.
Utilitarianism in Victorian England was often misconstructed as essentially anti-art, indeed as the doctrine of cultural philistines.
But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison house.

Like Bush, he is widely regarded as a philistine and intellectually limited man, whose pomposity and sense of self-importance are exceeded only by his provincialism.
Complete philistines may even be interested in the fact that the steps leading to the museum are those which featured in the Rocky movie when the boxer finished his training run.
To label [Béla] Tarr, co-subject of this week's micro-retro at the Harvard Film Archive, as a downer is merely a philistine's impatient way of saying he's an existentialist, a modern-film Dostoyevsky-Beckett with a distinctly Hungarian taste for suicidal depression, morose self-amusement, and bile," writes Michael Atkinson. GreenCine Daily: Fests and events, 1/11.
They can be seen as potential development land by philistines who only see land as money waiting to happen.
For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand.
I wouldn't have expected them to enjoy a film of that quality anyway - they're just a bunch of philistines!
Creative expression never needs to justify itself to philistines, who from time out of mind have never seen art as "serious."
Beneath this undercurrent of grumbling is the philistine assumption that it is elitist or irrelevant to consider art which does not excite the mass market.
Already this year, the city has revealed itself to be unusually philistine in the fields of architecture and art.
Philistine, if pressed for the reasons of his dislike, would either become inarticulate, ejaculating "faugh" and "pah" like an old-fashioned The Hill of Dreams
Such cuts are also an expression of cultural vandalism and philistine indifference.
Michtam of David, when the Philistines took him in Gath. Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume III (Job to Song of Solomon)
It had been called "Philistia" for the most part, undoubtedly after the Philistines whose Goliath had fought David thousands of years before. Israpundit
This is the sort of film critics go for, because they know the bourgeoisie will hate it and they're afraid if they don't ramble on about its brilliance and authenticity, they'll look like philistines to all their peers.
I am afraid the philistine, utilitarian forces that have so damaged higher education will exert their pressure for some while yet. Times, Sunday Times
Isaac must contrive the same story many years later with Rebecca to save his life from Abimelech king of the Philistines. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach: Deception And Desire: An Overview Of Genesis
The Philistines were a seafaring people who inhabited the coast of Israel and Lebanon in the area of Gaza-Ashdod-Jaffa.
an ambitious, disingenuous, philistine, and hypocritical operator, who...exemplified...the most disagreeable traits of his time
Between their mountain fastness and the dearly loved spring lay the host of the Philistines; but their love for their leader feared no enemies. A Book of Golden Deeds
Call me a philistine, but his experimental noise, if it can be charitably described as such, could make hounds howl.
As the appalling media response to the Momart fire has reminded us, what art needs most is defending from the philistine hordes.
I may remark, however, that 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, what is called a philistine — an expression at first peculiar to the The Wisdom of Life
He followed the same method as the Philistines when they sent it back to Israel and put it on a new cart, drawn by oxen.
Youse are prejudicial, and what's more youse are philistines. MUSIC FOR BOYS
Malay, looks upon the Englishman as little removed from a "Kafir" -- an uncircumcised Philistine -- who through ignorance constantly offends in minor points of etiquette, who eats pig and drinks strong drink, is ignorant of the dignity of repose, and whose accidental physical and political superiority in the present world will be more than compensated for by the very inferior and uncomfortable position he will attain in the next. British Borneo Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo
The simple truth has to be told: how he loved his country, and for another and a broader love, growing out of his first passion, fought it; and being small by comparison, and finding no giant of the Philistines disposed to receive a stone in his fore-skull, pummelled the obmutescent mass, to the confusion of a conceivable epic. Beauchamp's Career — Volume 1
Likewise excuseless is any man in our time who makes lifelong alliance with any one who, because of her disposition, or heredity, or habits, or intellectual vanity, or _moral twistification_, may be said to be of the Philistines. The Wedding Ring A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those Contemplating Matrimony
The difficulty is to be settled not by trying to write poetry that the Philistines can understand but by outdistancing them in the very race they have set.
Note, Those who have been sharers with each other in afflictions and mercies, dangers and deliverances, ought in consideration thereof to unite for their joint and mutual safety and protection; and it is likely to be well with the church when Ephraim and Judah are one against the Philistines. Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume IV (Isaiah to Malachi)
Seeing his work here does give some context, even if I am a complete philistine when it comes to paintings.
He has always compared the job of gallery boss to that of an evangelist, and viewed philistines as candidates for conversion rather than a mob to cower from.
Let us hope when it is illuminated that at least some of the philistines might see what the fuss is about.
The Philistines fought a battle against Israel, and the men of Israel were routed, leaving their dead on Mount Gilboa.
The French have adopted the term epicier (grocer) to designate the sort of being whom the Germans designate by the term Philistine; but the French term ” besides that it casts a slur upon a respectable class, composed of living and susceptible members, while the original Philistines are dead and buried long ago ” is really, I think, in itself much less apt and expressive than the German term. Matthew Arnold
The depredations of philistine governments and ignorant, self-seeking bureaucrats are not the sole cause of the changes I have witnessed in academic literary studies.
But on the whole, this is a great book to give to your colleagues in the humanities who think that anyone who does mathematics must be an unlettered philistine.
The Philistines then took the Ark to Gath, another city of the Philistine pentapolis. Archive 2008-05-01
Within this staid British academic lurks a true-blue American philistine. AN OLDER WOMAN
stop the city, let me out. this is blinkard philistine pig ignorance. Archive 2005-03-01
David leveled the Philistine Goliath, ‘whose height was six cubits and a span,’ with a stone.
When he came to this country in the 1960s, he says, it was a 'land of culinary philistines' - and sometimes he wonders whether things have really changed much at all.
Go home, you revolting little Philistine ," she said, turned on her heel and went through into Sister Declan's classroom. THE THORN BIRDS
Yet in the end, the sculpture works its magic; just as the biblical David defeated the ancient Philistines, his statue conquers the modern American philistines.
We are worried that the building - just before its centenary - will be traded by philistine property speculators.
This is a philistine agenda, subjecting universities' research and teaching to the narrow interests of the British economy.
It is the story of Samson, the mighty warrior who was betrayed by his lover, and then blinded and imprisoned by his enemies, the Philistines.
As you may recall, Obama's fans quickly established a reputation of acting like brain-damaged weasels or rabid squirrels or distempered hyenas or crazed dingos or foul-mouthed Philistines or huns, or other such creatures. Oh, My Bad, I Misunderstood What I Thought I Heard, but I Guess I Didn't Hear What I Thought was Said.
I wouldn't have expected them to enjoy a film of that quality anyway - they're just a bunch of philistines!
Palestine itself did exist; it is the name granted to Israel by the Roman Empire after it quelled the Bar Kochba revolt in 135 CE; it was originally an insult to ancient jews living there as Palestine was from the greek/latin for of the term philistine to describe a mortal enemy of the jews; one who was constantly invading Israel in its early history, before its eventual eradication as a people. On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with...
When asked how long they spent making something, most artists assume that the questioner is a philistine.
There's a swoopy, somewhat incongruous Frank Gehry building in Millennium Park in Chicago," says a famous architecture critic who wishes to remain nameless for fear of being perceived as a revolting, disgusting philistine who ought to be hanged, drawn, quartered and then shot, but only after being blinded and flayed alive. An Architect's Blueprint for Overexposure
"I find it is difficult for anyone but a philistine to resist the lure of great picture book art."
And we have his testimony that the Philistines hated him, added to that of inspiration that they "envied" him. The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4
But you don't have to be a philistine who believes that public money should only be spent on council house roofs and school jotters to question the arguments that were used to dip the public purse for most of the cash.
In a review that aspires to be no more than a compatibility assessment for populists it basically translates to “smarty-pants”, stands as a marker of a philistine grudge against the audacity of ambition. Ethics and Enthusiasm
Still, he's a flawed guy, and the Philistines capitalize on this by sending in top-secret operative Delilah, the seductive hottie charged with sapping Samson of his strength (no, not that way).
Let the philistines bray: the Society of Student Artists knows how important it is to come to grips with the world of commerce.
For what have you done -- you, a mere Canaanite, hewer of wood and drawer of water to some grossly Philistine firm of city bankers -- to deserve this immunity from anxiety and distress; while I, with my superior culture, my ambition and talents, am condemned to that beastly squeaking wire-wove mattress upstairs, and a job-lot of furniture which some previous German waiter has ejected in disgust from his bedroom in the basement? The Far Horizon
In this case, the higher powers are film censors, whether philistine Senators or the timorous, arbitrary ethicists of the MPAA, valiantly guarding us from ourselves.
To put this bluntly, art and its processes have always been incomprehensible to philistines and ideologues on the right and left.
God, even when he had by his fear and folly thrown himself into the hands of the Philistines; it was when they took him in Gath, whither he fled for fear of Saul, forgetting the quarrel they had with him for killing Goliath; but they soon put him in mid of it, 1 Sam. xxi. Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume III (Job to Song of Solomon)
So, if I'm a philistine I'm proud to be one and please let's stop bad-mouthing a people of whom we know not nearly enough.
It turns out that nearly everyone, Japanese or otherwise, is a philistine in the condescending and rather snobbish world view of the film.
And as yet another example of perhaps the only serious British contribution to 20th century architecture faces demolition, is there any other art form about which we could be so utterly, wilfully philistine?
In addition to this, none of the five cities of the Philistine pentapolis (Ashkelon, Ekron, Ashdod, Gaza, and CreationWiki - Recent changes [en]
So both of them discovered themselves to the garrison of the Philistines.
Of course, I guess it's possible that these books are all pretty well known to literate Americans and I'm just a philistine.
To mollify the Israelite God, the Philistines included five golden “hemorrhoids” one for each city of the Philistine pentapolis and five golden mice. Archive 2008-05-01
The word rendered "garrison" is different from that of 1Sa 13: 23; 14: 1, and signifies, literally, something erected; probably a pillar or flagstaff, indicative of Philistine ascendency. Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
It's perfectly ok with me if Jonathan Yardley has philistine tastes in fiction, but one would swear that he has been given prominence in the Washington Post for all these years because he represents the similar philistine tastes of most of those who write for and edit American newspapers, and can be counted on to give those artsy-fartsy novelists (the "literati" more generally) a good smack in the face every once in a while. Book Reviewing
The Philistine came forward morning and evening for forty days and took his stand.
I flatter myself as cultured, but I'm evidently a proper philistine.
Such a project, once built, would change the history of architecture; and those who built it would, ten or 20 years hence, look not like philistines but visionaries.
Btw, it may pass notice without an overt mention, but the earlier reference to the "unholy" trinity - of facile contempt, philistine incomprehension and an incurious and willful blindness - is "unholy" vis-a-vis the very best and most rigorous of post-Enlightenment (i.e. rational and transparent) standards, not the pseudo-standards of some strawman, stereotypical, backwards looking fideism. On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with...
And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose, and came and drew nigh to meet David, that David hasted, and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine.
What has probably been more galling for them is how our largely unappreciative, philistine public has looked on the job as something without actual skills and real knowledge, while the opposite is true.
Call me a lowbrow, a philistine if you like, but I wasn't lured to Vienna by any of these.
A prescriptive list of buildings meriting destruction, however, is simply philistine.
In that influential 1964 text, Sontag denounced what she termed a reactionary and philistine tendency to bury works of art underneath theory-heavy interpretations.
Its detractors found it philistine, and indeed there are few mentions in the novel of any intellectual pursuits.
Call me a heathen if you will, call me a philistine if the whim takes you, but I don't understand most modern art.
The policy is philistine, expensive and environmentally disastrous.
As an intellectual Goebbels looked down on the crude philistines of the leading group in Munich.
Philistines, who were their enemies; and this was the thing primely, nay solely intended by him, and not the taking away his own life, which no doubt he wished that in that action he could have preserved from the common ruin, though he knew that the cause was such, that while he took away his enemies 'lives, he should by consequence lose his own. Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions. Vol. IV.
This sort of elitist piffle doubtless does wonders for the ego of those who espouse it, while pre-emptively discounting contrary opinions, which by definition originate in a philistine mindset.
Mrs Robarts did not return, but went up among the children to counter-order such directions as she had given for the preparation of the nursery for the Philistines. Framley Parsonage
The damage to the intellectual and moral fabric of society resulting from such a mercenary and philistine approach is impossible to quantify.
We have to accept the contempt of architects and planners for our philistine lack of taste. Times, Sunday Times
Samson routinely got into fights, and once killed 1000 Philistines single-handedly and then gloated over it, showing no remorse.
Most retail philistines won't quite see what all the fuss is about; smalls are smalls, they murmur, no matter where they are sold.
For Adorno, a philistine is someone who can only experience the work as a mere thing.
Saul was killed in battle against the Philistines before David became king of all Israel.
I believe he seriously thinks me an awful Philistine.
There are some philistines out there who claim that all of Jack and Meg's records sound the same.
The Canaanites suffered a series of setbacks in the late 2nd millennium bc with attacks from the sea peoples in the north while in the south they were displaced by the Israelites and the Philistines.
After all, he denounced as philistine all art that exhibited clear sympathies or broadcast explicit messages. The Times Literary Supplement
It has always seemed to me, Madam, that that same jaw-bone must have been either prodigiously strong and tough, or else the Philistine crania must have been of very chartaceous texture.
But the bridecake was upon him as the Philistines upon Samson; and the question was, what the devil to do with it? Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places
Artists, of course, are thrust unwillingly into the front line of today's cultural battle, prime targets for the kind of philistine paranoia that characterized the shameful McCarthy era. Peter Clothier: Censorship: Coast to Coast
But it is a hard case that a son of Abraham must be forced to appeal to a Philistine, to a Nero, from those who call themselves the seed of Abraham, and shall be safer in Gath or Rome than in Jerusalem. Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume VI (Acts to Revelation)
I should prefer to take a higher point of view, and apply the term philistine to people who are always seriously occupied with realities which are no realities; but as such a definition would be a transcendental one, and therefore not generally intelligible, it would hardly be in place in the present treatise, which aims at being popular. The Wisdom of Life
After seeing the collection reinstalled in that spectacular building, only a true philistine - or a schnook - would think it's not worth it.
The American desire for material goods caused Europeans to dismiss them as philistines.
Only her wastrel cousin Vincent Vere, she believes, possesses a poetic soul similar to her own, though the philistine world regards him as nothing but a sickly, rather epicene dandy and sponge. Tolstoy and Trollope Fans, Meet Couperus
Call me a philistine, but I have small patience for Samuel Beckett, can tolerate only small doses of serial atonality, and am bored numb by recitative.
Ignore the doom-mongers and philistines - it is both possible and desirable to rescue Venice from sinking into the sea.
The notion of the intentional fallacy, in rejecting the authority of the author, denying the expressive-manipulative functions of narrative, its aesthetic stance and agency in the world, ultimately seeks to objectify that narrative, to render it a product for philistine consumption or philosophical scrutiny, completely and unchallengeably possessed and controlled. posted by Hal Duncan | 11: 55 PM Notes on Strange Fiction: Narrative's Function (2)
The culture of these two cities has grown steadily more philistine.
Like others of my generation, I look smugly down on the philistines of 1960 who couldn't see the self-evident greatness of Psycho, now widely viewed as one of the most brilliant achievements of the American screen.
If the objection of the philistine were the same as the proletarian's, that art is a luxury, a waste of the energies of the community, which might better be employed in feeding the hungry and saving sinners, it would be more worthy of a hearing; and so he often represents it. The Principles of Aesthetics
Worst of all, the play spends an inordinate amount of time making the kind of philistine pronouncements about abstract and conceptual art that people who know nothing about art always make.
The world of the gourmet chef and wine list holds no appeal for Philistine Adams, who during the day is perfectly happy with a cup of tea and a bikkie. The Australian | News |
The peculiar characteristic of the philistine is a dull, dry kind of gravity, akin to that of animals. The Wisdom of Life
Of him whose creation is sufficient to render the year 1849 memorable in the annals of the land much has ere now been written -- that type of a well-to-do British householder, delightful for his follies and endearing by his pluck, something of a lunatic, it must be admitted, yet more of a sportsman, and most of all a "muff" -- _Punch's_ "simple-minded Philistine paterfamilias. The History of "Punch"
When the Israelites asked for a king to lead them against the Philistines, Samuel warned them that he would become a tyrant.
Efforts have been made to obtain in English some term equivalent to Philister or epicier; Mr. Carlyle has made several such efforts: “Respectability with its thousand gigs,” he says; well, the occupant of every one of these gigs is, Mr. Carlyle means, a Philistine. Matthew Arnold
Jurgen now looked more attentively at this queer creature: and he saw that the tumblebug was malodorous, certainly, but at bottom honest and well-meaning; and this seemed to Jurgen the saddest thing he had found among the Philistines. Jurgen A Comedy of Justice
Yeah, that's all true, Samson did shtup a lot of Philistine sheilas, but sports plays no role in the Bible of the Jews. Your Moral Leader
I am afraid the philistine, utilitarian forces that have so damaged higher education will exert their pressure for some while yet. Times, Sunday Times
Stanley, a brusquely philistine furniture manufacturer, and Louise, his artily pretentious wife, exist in a state of permanent war.
The assault upon the English universities is so violent and philistine it represents the academic equivalent of the dissolution of the monasteries.
Merely saying the year, grape and country of origin was a philistine's way of labelling wine.
It has always seemed to me, Madam, that that same jaw-bone must have been either prodigiously strong and tough, or else the Philistine crania must have been of very chartaceous texture. The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866
My faith is a congeries of dogmatical certitudes, one of which is that the new liturgy is the triumph, yea the resurrection, of the Philistines. posted by John at 11: 07 AM Leap Year -- Day
Now granted, our popular culture can at times be philistine - whichever country's can't?
I'm a bit of philistine when it comes to art; I don't have much time for it and art galleries make me feel sleepy.
The philistines may have triumphed on the streets of the 2008 Capital of Culture, but surely the galleries were unconquered?
Then slowly the Nazarite youth began to incline to the indulgent lifestyle of the neighboring Philistines.
Of course none of this will convince the philistines who believe that making music this good involves nothing more complex than a good mains supply.
Some of these arguments are important and valid for protecting ambitious contemporary art as a whole from philistines and iconophobes.
You ought to have three or four quarters of a dollar more on each copy, but we put the lowest price on the book in terror of the Philistines, and to secure its accessibleness to the economical Public. The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol. I
"I don't think Joe Public is quite as philistine as is imagined," he murmurs.
But as for my sweet Babbie, her volition is not yet adequate to breaking the pack-threads of the Lilliputians, never to speak of cords of the Philistines. Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle
Oscar faced the American Philistine public without his accustomed "claque", and under these circumstances a half-success was evidence of considerable power. Oscar Wilde His Life and Confessions
To the city's more philistine elements he seemed always the quintessential bogman.
Philistines disposed to receive a stone in his fore-skull, pummelled the obmutescent mass, to the confusion of a conceivable epic. Complete Project Gutenberg Works of George Meredith

How To Use Philistine In A Sentence

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