Elegant Quotes - Page 8

• This special feeling towards fruit, its glory and abundance, is I would say universal.... We respond to strawberry fields or cherry orchards with a delight that a cabbage patch or even an elegant vegetable garden cannot provoke.

  Jane Grigson

  Food, Garden, Vegetables

  Jane Grigson (2007). “Jane Grigson's Fruit Book”, p.27, U of Nebraska Press

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• Should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a schoolbook? Its morals are pure, its examples are captivating and noble....In no Book is there so good English, so pure and so elegant, and by teaching all the same they will speak alike, and the Bible will justly remain the standard of language as well as of faith.

  Fisher Ames

  Book, Teaching, Example

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• The Thickety is a sinister, magical debut with a marvelous and shocking heroine. J.A. White’s elegant writing and masterful plot kept me turning pages late into the night.

  Lisa McMann

  Writing, Night, White

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• A good designer can create a design that accommodates all the constraints and still delivers an elegant, satisfying experience to the user. A great designer can go beyond this and create a design that demonstrates that some of those constraints weren’t really there to begin with.

  Jesse James Garrett

  Design, Constraints, Stills

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• Tall, elegant, vital, scornful. A man like that could rock a woman to her very core.

  Margaret Way

  Men, Rocks, Tall

  Margaret Way (2010). “Strategy for Marriage”, p.46, Harlequin

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• To build a city where it is impossible to build a city is madness in itself, but to build there one of the most elegant and grandest of cities is the madness of genius.

  Alexander Herzen

  Cities, Venice, Genius

  "The lost city of Venice" by Josh McHugh, www.wired.com. August 1, 2003.

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• Steiner has here transformed the vaporous conceptions of his life, the vapors of what never was and never will be, from their aeriform state to a fine and ethereal substantiality. My Unwritten Books is a gathering of shades, an elegant and eloquent gathering of mind, feeling, and autumnal passion. (...) And that is the lovely irony of this unique little book. None of these unwritten books should have been written. They are better here, as they are, untamed and errant phantoms of a brilliance whose emanations no one mortal lifetime could ever accommodate in full.

  Nick Tosches

  Book, Passion, Unique

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• The very sight of a teapot puts a smile on the face of most people. One cannot help but think of more serene and genteel times. From a whimsical child's teapot to an elegant English Teapot, to collectible teapots that adorn some homes, they are a subtle reminder of all that is good in this world.

  Barbara Roberts

  Children, Home, Thinking

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• I have always been drawn to designing fashions that are rebellious, like black leather jackets on suburban kinds, a corset dress, punk, blue jeans. I love that. Fashion changes all the time, and what is considered extreme or elegant or luxurious (or not luxurious) is changing all the time.

  Jean Paul Gaultier

  Fashion, Blue, Leather Jackets

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• We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress. No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves. That is our only certain good and great purpose on earth, and if you ask me about those insoluble economic problems that may arise if the top is deprived of their initiative, I would answer 'To hell with them.' The top is greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do.

  Michael Foot

  Mean, Helping Others, Common Purpose

  Michael Foot (1984). “Another heart and other pulses: the alternative to the Thatcher society”, HarperCollins

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• Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust.

  John Rawls

  Law, Justice, Unjust

  John Rawls (2009). “A Theory of Justice”, p.3, Harvard University Press

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• What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman to be a loyal son, a true husband, an honest father? Ought his life to be decent, his bills to be paid, his taste to be high and elegant, his aims in life lofty and noble?

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Wise, Husband, Father

  William Makepeace Thackeray (2008). “Contributions to Punch, Etc.”, p.311, Wildside Press LLC

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• Vultures are homely, but they clean up all the garbage and that's good. And they're elegant in the sky.

  Roger Tory Peterson

  Sky, Bird, Garbage

  "In The Studio With Roger Tory Peterson; Reluctant Earthling" by Lisa W. Foderaro, www.nytimes.com. August 26, 1993.

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• Ugly programs are like ugly suspension bridges: they're much more liable to collapse than pretty ones, because the way humans (especially engineer-humans) perceive beauty is intimately related to our ability to process and understand complexity. A language that makes it hard to write elegant code makes it hard to write good code.

  Eric S. Raymond

  Writing, Learning, Bridges

  "Why Python?". www.linuxjournal.com. Apr 30, 2000.

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• Workers and their families may starve to death in the New World Order of economic rationality, but diamond necklaces are cheaper in elegant New York shops, thanks to the miracle of the market.

  Noam Chomsky

  New York, Order, Miracle

  Noam Chomsky (1997). “World Orders, Old and New”, p.128, Pluto Press

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• It is impossible to think of any good meal, no matter how plain or elegant, without soup or bread in it

  M. F. K. Fisher

  Thinking, Meals, Soup

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• The strange, wonderful stories of Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain introduce us to the tremendously gifted Kirsten Menger-Anderson, a writer whose subject is nothing less than the diagnosis and cure of the human malady. We follow twelve generations of New York City's Steenwycks family through their forays into phrenology, mesmerism, radium therapy and similar misadventures, a historically rich narrative that Menger-Anderson delivers in striking, elegant prose and with a sure eye for detail. This is a remarkable debut by a writer to watch.

  Ben Fountain

  New York, Eye, Cities

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• We endeavour to employ only symmetrical figures, such as should not only be an aid to reasoning, through the sense of sight, but should also be to some extent elegant in themselves.

  John Venn

  Science, Sight, Use

  "Symbolic Logic". book by John Venn, 1881.

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• Ann Sothern's dressing room...was unbelievably lush and beautiful. More elegant than many homes I've been in.

  Hedda Hopper

  Beautiful, Home, Rooms

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• A brute force solution that works is better than an elegant solution that doesn't work.

  Steve McConnell

  Design, Programming, Force

  Steve McConnell (2004). “Code Complete”, p.107, Pearson Education

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• The artist who does not feel completely satisfied by elegant lines, by harmonious colors, and by a beautiful succession of chords does not understand the art of music.

  Camille Saint-Saens

  Beautiful, Art, Color

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• Sometimes terror and pain are not the best levers; deception, when it works, is the most elegant and the least expensive manipulation of all.

  Vernor Vinge

  Pain, Deception, Levers

  Vernor Vinge (2010). “A Fire Upon The Deep”, p.145, Macmillan

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• Conversation! Supple sentences, with first and second meanings and overtones beyond, outrageous challenges with cleverly planned slip-points, rebuttals of elegant brevity; deceptions and guiles, patient explanations of the obvious, fleeting allusions to the unthinkable. As a preliminary, the conversationalist must gauge the mood, the intelligence and the verbal facility of the company. To this end, a few words of pedantic exposition often prove invaluable.

  Jack Vance

  Challenges, Deception, Fleeting

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• Don't worry about your physical shortcomings. I am no Greek god. Don't get too much sleep and don't tell anybody your troubles. Appearances count: Get a sun lamp to keep you looking as though you have just come back from somewhere expensive: maintain an elegant address even if you have to live in the attic. Never nickel when short of cash. Borrow big, but always repay promptly.

  Aristotle Onassis

  Business, Sleep, Worry

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• One would be hard put to find a set of whole numbers with a more fascinating history and more elegant properties surrounded by greater depths of mystery--and more totally useless--than the perfect numbers.

  Martin Gardner

  Education, Math, Numbers

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