Virginia Postrel Quotes

• Glamour doesn’t just happen, people don’t wake up in the morning glamorous.

  Virginia Postrel

  Morning, People, Wake Up

  45 Copy quote

• How we feel about the evolving future tells us who we are as individuals and as a civilization: Do we search for stasis-a regulated, engineered world? Or do we embrace dynamism-a world of constant creation, discovery, and competition?

  Virginia Postrel

  Discovery, Civilization, Competition

  Virginia Postrel (2011). “The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise,”, p.14, Simon and Schuster

  10 Copy quote

• Glamour is all about transcending this world and getting to an idealized, perfect place.

  Virginia Postrel

  Perfect, World, Glamour

  10 Copy quote

• In a dynamic, decentralized system of individual choice and responsibility, people do not have to trust any authority but their own.

  Virginia Postrel

  Responsibility, Individual Choice, People

  Virginia Postrel (2011). “The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise,”, p.168, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

• On the Internet, people on the tails of the bell curve can find one
  another.

  Virginia Postrel

  Curves, People, Tails

  5 Copy quote

• Progress through trial and error depends not only on making trials, but on recognizing errors.

  Virginia Postrel

  Errors, Progress, Trial And Error

  Virginia Postrel (2011). “The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise,”, p.137, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• European nations began World War I with a glamorous vision of war, only to be psychologically shattered by the realities of the trenches. The experience changed the way people referred to the glamour of battle; they treated it no longer as a positive quality but as a dangerous illusion.

  Virginia Postrel

  War, Reality, People

  Virginia Postrel (2013). “The Power of Glamour: Longing and the Art of Visual Persuasion”, p.22, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

• Glamour is translucent — not transparent, not opaque. It invites us into the world but it doesn’t give us a completely clear picture.

  Virginia Postrel

  Giving, World, Opaque

  6 Copy quote

• Kidney disease is a low-profile, unglamorous problem, a disease that disproportionately strikes minorities and the poor. Its celebrity spokesman is blue-collar comedian George Lopez, who received a kidney from his wife.

  Virginia Postrel

  Blue, Wife, Comedian

  6 Copy quote

• The mobile middle class gravitates to the cities where housing is affordable.

  Virginia Postrel

  Class, Cities, Middle

  4 Copy quote

• The impulse for personal adornment is hard to stamp out.

  Virginia Postrel

  Stamps, Impulse, Hard

  7 Copy quote

• The SAT is not perfect. We all know smart, knowledgeable people who do badly on standardized tests. But neither is it useless. SAT scores do measure both specific knowledge and valuable thinking skills.

  Virginia Postrel

  Smart, Thinking, Skills

  8 Copy quote

• Abundant choice doesn't force us to look for the absolute best of everything. It allows us to find the extremes in those things we really care about, whether that means great coffee, jeans cut wide across the hips, or a spouse who shares your zeal for mountaineering, Zen meditation, and science fiction.

  Virginia Postrel

  Coffee, Mean, Cutting

  4 Copy quote

• Medicare is immune from the competitive pressures that force private insurers to pay attention to what patients and doctors want.

  Virginia Postrel

  Doctors, Pay, Pressure

  4 Copy quote

• The glamour of air travel - its aspirational meaning in the public imagination - disappeared before its luxury did, dissipating as flying gradually became commonplace.

  Virginia Postrel

  Air, Luxury, Imagination

  4 Copy quote

• Aesthetics has become too important to be left to the aesthetes. To succeed, hard-nosed engineers, real estate developers, and MBAs must take aesthetic communication, and aesthetic pleasure, seriously. We, their customers, demand it.

  Virginia Postrel

  Real, Communication, Mba

  Virginia Postrel (2009). “The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness”, p.4, Harper Collins

  16 Copy quote

• At the simplest level, only people who know they do not know everything will be curious enough to find things out.

  Virginia Postrel

  Inspirational, People, Intelligence

  Virginia Postrel (2011). “The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise,”, p.88, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Sally Satel

Glenn Reynolds

Matt Welch

Jacob Sullum

Ann Althouse

Grant David McCracken

Tom G. Palmer

Megan McArdle