Daily Inspiration Quote by Cyril Connolly

At first glance, Connolly flatters intellect; on a second pass, he insults your instincts. Calling a “taste” for someone else’s “quality of mind” the most “acquired” taste recasts admiration as a learned appetite, not a natural reflex. You don’t just recognize good thinking the way you recognize a sweet strawberry. You train yourself into it, often against your own convenience.

The barb is aimed at the lazy romance of “chemistry.” Connolly implies that most of us default to the comfortable: the familiar accent, the pleasing personality, the gratifying agreement. Real mental quality can feel abrasive at first. It corrects you, outpaces you, refuses to flatter your self-image. Developing a taste for it requires humility (to be shown up), patience (to follow an argument longer than a slogan), and a willingness to let your preferences be remodeled.

There’s also a social critique hiding in the word “acquired.” Taste is a class-coded term: it’s learned through exposure, schooling, and the quiet pressure to signal refinement. Connolly, a journalist steeped in literary culture, knows how easily “quality of mind” becomes a badge - something people claim to prize while actually selecting for the performance of cleverness. The line dares you to ask: do you want intelligence, or do you want the cosmetics of intelligence?

In an attention economy built to reward instant takes, Connolly’s sentence reads like a refusal. He’s describing an education in discomfort: the cultivated ability to enjoy being challenged by another person’s mind.