Sophistication might be described as the ability to cope gracefully with a situation involving the presence of a formidable menace to one’s poise and prestige (such as the butler, or the man under the bed – but never the husband). James Thurber
Sophistication knows the score, but is powerless to change it. Mason Cooley
I have always thought of sophistication as rather a feeble substitute for decadence. Christopher Hampton
It takes that je ne sais quoi which we call sophistication for a woman to be magnificent in a drawing-room when her faculties have departed but she herself has not yet gone home. James Thurber
Out in Hollywood, where the streets are paved with Goldwyn, the word ‘sophisticate’ means, very simply, ‘obscene’. A sophisticated story is a dirty story. Some of that meaning was wafted eastward and got itself mixed up into the present definition. So that a ‘sophisticate’ means: one who dwells in a tower made of a DuPont substitute for ivory and holds a glass of flat champagne in one hand and an album of dirty post cards in the other. Dorothy Parker
What is a sophisticate? He is a man who thinks he can swim better than he can and sometimes he drowns. Oscar Hammerstein II
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Leonardo da Vinci
There is more sophistication and less sense in New York than anywhere else on the globe. Don Herold
The spirit’s foe in man has not been simplicity, but sophistication. George Santayana