The female figure in the Italian Renaissance was not only idealized as a Neoplatonic manifestation of "heaven on earth," but seen as the embodiment of intellectual refinement.

This portrait, probably made in Italy, exemplifies the intellectual refinement of the middle of the 2nd century AD.

Lex Hixon's literary works came about from direct experience in the field of spirituality combined with intellectual refinement and human sensitivity.

He sensed that Swaggart was rebelling against the strictures of rational modernity; it was "defiantly emotional," light-years away from the "arid intellectual refinements" of Wright's own childhood religion.

French Presidents are expected to possess an aura of aesthetic and intellectual refinement that dignifies the nation.

There are other characters in Mr. Cahill's history, the most important of them clearly being Patrick, one of his heroes, a man of less intellectual refinement than Augustine but of greater humanity.

Cultural or intellectual refinement; good taste.

And inevitably, after an age of intellectual refinement, humanity will lose its vital sap and die from sexual impotence.

Apollo, on the other hand, is double-natured, a symbol of intellectual refinement and moral ambiguity.

They bring out the fact that intellectual refinement can be a disadvantage to a story-teller, as it would be to a music-hall comedian.