Elegance Quotes - page 3
It is true – is it not – that even Ingres [French classical painter, famous for his line] had to revise – yes, the surface of the painting is smooth, finished and incorruptible as a diamond, but under the accomplished surface are pentimenti – see there at the shoulder, how the line of the black dress was lowered qua fraction and the hand was extended to give greater elegance... Are these not signs of the patient revision that even a genius has to make.
Arshile Gorky
Perhaps the editor may be accused of nationality, when he says, that, taking the total merits of this work together, he prefers it to the early exertions of even the Italian muse, to the melancholy sublimity of Dante, and the amorous quaintness of Petrarca...Here indeed the reader will find few of the graces of fine poetry, little of the attic dress of the muse; but here are life and spirit, and ease and plain sense, and pictures of real manners, and perpetual incident and entertainment. The language is remarkably good for the time, and far superior in neatness and elegance even to that of Gawin Douglass, who wrote more than a century after.
John Barbour
These aren't nerds. They're a bunch of interesting guys, and that's the problem with Revenge of the Nerds II. The movie doesn't have the nerve to be about real nerds. It hedges its bets. A nerd is not a nerd because he understands computers and wears a plastic pen protector in his shirt pocket. A nerd is a nerd because he brings a special lack of elegance to life. An absence of style. An inability to notice the feelings of other people. A nerd is a nerd from the inside out, which is something the nerds who made this movie will never understand.
Roger Ebert
The good taste we speak of, which is that of literature, is not limited to what we call the sciences, but extends itself imperceptibly to other arts, such as architecture, painting, sculpture, and music. 'Tis the same discerning faculty which introduces universally the same elegance, the same symmetry, and the same order in the disposition of the parts; which inclines us to a noble simplicity, to natural beauties, and a judicious choice of ornaments. On the other hand, the depravation of taste in arts has been always a mark and consequence of the depravation of taste in literature. ... The good taste of literature reaches also to public customs, and the manner of living. An habit of consulting the best rules upon one subject, naturally leads to the doing it also upon others.
Charles Rollin
The Trump candidacy puts Democrats in an extremely awkward position. They are the party of elegance and fabulosity, but also claim to be the party of the "blacks and browns”-who see absolutely nothing wrong with Trump's taste. Jay Z and Beyoncé may not like Trump's positions, but, boy, they like his style. They're asking themselves, How can a person of such taste be a Republican? He's P. Diddy in the Hamptons, disturbing the neighbors with his parties.
Ann Coulter
If you want to get an idea of a friend's temperament, ethics, and personal elegance, you need to look at him under the tests of severe circumstances, not under the regular rosy glow of daily life. Can you assess the danger a criminal poses by examining only what he does on an ordinary day? Can we understand health without considering wild diseases and epidemics? Indeed the normal is often irrelevant.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Without these experimental tests, very few physicists would have accepted general relativity. There are many hypotheses in physics of almost comparable brilliance and elegance that have been rejected because they did not survive such a confrontation with experiment. In my view, the human condition would be greatly improved if such confrontations and willingness to reject hypotheses were a regular part of our social, political, economic, religious and cultural lives.
Carl Sagan
This tendency, however, to ascribe an universality of genius to great men, led Dryden to affirm, on the strength of two smart satyrical lines, that Virgil could have written a satire equal to Juvenal. But, with all due deference to Dryden, I conceive it much more manifest, that Juvenal could have written a better epic than Virgil, than that Virgil could have written a satire equal to Juvenal. Juvenal has many passages of the moral sublime far superior to any that can be found in Virgil, who, indeed, seldom attempts a higher flight than the sublime of description. Had Lucan lived, he might have rivalled them both, as he has all the vigour of the one, and time might have furnished him with the taste and elegance of the other.
Charles Caleb Colton
Any form of card-case, beyond the most battered and unassuming, is surely an aesthetic and social travesty. To withdraw, say, a silver case from the pocket before removing a card is surely to trumpet a ludicrous gaucheness and maladroit pretension. It is impossible for the intended recipient of the card to view the case as anything other than a misjudged piece of peacockery; unfeasible to avoid a brief inner commentary along the lines of oh, he's bought one of those... he decided this would make the act of handing over a card a signal of his success as a businessman and a certain refined elegance as a gentleman... probably picked it out himself... please God it was a Father's Day gift from a child who knew no better.
Derren Brown