Polished Quotes - Page 5

• I saw the Vietnam Veterans Memorial not as an object placed into the earth but as a cut in the earth that has then been polished, like a geode.

  Maya Lin

  Cutting, Memorial, Vietnam

  Quoted in Smithsonian Magazine, Aug. 1996

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• I though about what death is, what a loss is. A sharp pain that lessens with time, but can never quite heal over. A scar. The idea occurred to me there on the site. Take a knife and cut open the earth, and with time the grass would heal it. As if you cut open the rock and polished it.

  Maya Lin

  Pain, Cutting, Loss

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• A human life gains lustre and strength only when it is polished and tempered.

  Mas Oyama

  Art, Gains, Human Life

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• It is sometimes frightening to observe the success which comes even to the outlaw with a polished technique, and we find ourselves doubting the validity of the virtues we have been taught. But I believe we must reckon with character in the end, for it is as potent a force in world conflict as it is in our own domestic affairs. It strikes the last blow in any battle.

  Philip D. Reed

  Success, Believe, Character

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• Shame, isn’t it? That we only like our heroes out in the street when they are looking their best and their uniforms are ‘spit and polished,’ and not when they’re showing us the wounds they suffered on our behalf.

  Jacqueline Winspear

  Life, Hero, Uniforms

  Jacqueline Winspear (2003). “Maisie Dobbs”, p.171, Soho Press

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• The breezes taste Of apple peel. The air is full Of smells to feel- Ripe fruit, old footballs, Burning brush, New books, erasers, Chalk, and such. The bee, his hive, Well-honeyed hum, And Mother cuts Chrysanthemums. Like plates washed clean With suds, the days Are polished with A morning haze.

  John Updike

  Football, Mother, Morning

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• Perfection is a polished collection of errors.

  Mario Benedetti

  Errors, Perfection, Collections

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• A statue stands in a shaded place
  An angel girl with an upturned face
  A name is written on a polished rock
  A broken heart that the world forgot

  Martina McBride

  Girl, Heart, Angel

  Song: Concrete Angel

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• All our contemporary philosophers perhaps without knowing it are looking through eyeglasses that Baruch Spinoza polished. Spinoza was a philosopher who earned his livelihood by grinding lenses.

  Heinrich Heine

  Eyeglasses, Knowing, Lenses

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• Half the issues they - are so polished they're talking about - are dead by the time they get into the office, and into the midst of their tour where they're really productive.

  James Stockdale

  Journey, Talking, Issues

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• Men are polished, through act and speech, Each by each, As pebbles are smoothed on the rolling beach.

  John Townsend Trowbridge

  Beach, Men, Pebbles

  John Townsend Trowbridge (1881). “A Home Idyl: And Other Poems”

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• Exactness is first obtained, and afterwards elegance. But diction, merely vocal, is always in its childhood. As no man leaves his eloquence behind him, the new generations have all to learn. There may possibly be books without a polished language, but there can be no polished language without books.

  Samuel Johnson

  Book, Men, Childhood

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1857). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.653

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• When I first came out, like a lot of the artists at that time, I had a very polished, very overproduced sound.

  Taylor Dane

  Artist, Sound, Firsts

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• In the current era, more than prodigies in mathematics, science, athletics, or art, I believe we need prodigies of good character and integrity. People who have polished their character and integrity until they shine are the ones who can be the real heroes the world needs to solve its problems. I think that, when people have the correct understanding of the meaning of human character, there will be a solution.

  Ilchi Lee

  Art, Real, Integrity

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• The brightest crowns that are worn in heaven have been tried, and smelted, and polished and glorified through the furnaces of tribulation.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Heaven, Crowns, Worn

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• The garden of the world has no limits except in your mind. Its presence is more beautiful than the stars with more clarity than the polished mirror of your heart.

  Rumi

  Beautiful, Stars, Heart

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• To do a drawing for a painting most often means doing something very sketchy and schematic and then later making it polished.

  Jasper Johns

  Mean, Drawing, Painting

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• I love old architecture. I love collecting furniture, mixing really earthy things with the very polished. I don't come from an interiors background, so I'm not an expert. I just enjoy going to antiques shows and finding interesting things.

  Jason Wu

  Interesting, Mixing, Experts

  "Jason Wu Makes His Move into Home". Interview with Anne Monoky, www.architecturaldigest.com. October 31, 2011.

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• I have seen everything possible covered in studs and grommets. Also, what I call angry shoes: those platforms with the multiple buckles and studs. I think the polished girl is back.

  Nina Garcia

  Girl, Thinking, Shoes

  "Nina Garcia So Over ‘Angry Shoes,’ Says ‘Polished Girl Is Back’", www.huffingtonpost.com. August 11, 2010.

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• At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It was a sharp, cold Christmas; and as the short northern day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor.

  Herman Melville

  Ocean, Night, Anchors

  Herman Melville (1892). “Moby Dick”, p.101

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• The frivolous work of polished idleness.

  James Mackintosh

  Work, Frivolous, Idleness

  James Mackintosh (1872). “On the Progress of Ethical Philosophy: Chiefly During the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries”, p.232

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• Bring me a wheel of oaken wood A rein of polished leather A Heavy Horse and a tumbling sky Brewing heavy weather.

  Ian Anderson

  Horse, Sky, Weather

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• I was so mad at my agent. I had polished and polished and polished [the play], and he referred to it as a draft. I wrote him a bitter letter: How can you call this a draft? I don't do drafts! By now I've done 18, and its turning, in the rehearsal room, into a 19th.

  Cynthia Ozick

  Play, Mad, Done

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• Now the novels that are read are purely entertainment – well done, very polished, with a very effective technique – but not literature, just entertainment.

  Mario

  Technique, Done, Literature

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• All political power is primarily an illusion. Illusion. Mirrors and blue smoke, beautiful blue smoke rolling over the surface of highly polished mirrors, first a thin veil of blue smoke, then a thick cloud that suddenly dissolves into wisps of blue smoke, the mirrors catching it all, bouncing it back and forth.

  Jimmy Breslin

  Beautiful, Clouds, Mirrors

  How the Good Guys Finally Won: Notes from an Impeachment Summer (1975). Usually quoted as "smoke and mirrors."

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