Elegant Quotes - Page 17

• The sluices of the grog-shop are fed from the wine-glasses in the parlor, and there is a lineal descent from the gentleman who hiccoughs at his elegant dinner-table to the sot who makes a bed of the gutter.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Wine, Glasses, Gentleman

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• The novella is at once the most elegant and demanding form: a writer must balance the looseness of a novel with the concision of a short story, a feat that only the bravest and most talented of us can manage. In Brazil, Jesse Lee Kercheval proves, yet again, that she is exactly the right writer for the job. A wild American picaresque, Brazil snaps along briskly, yet feels full-fleshed, and brims with a sly wit and grace.

  Lauren Groff

  Jobs, Grace, Balance

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• Chloe Honum's brilliant first book The Tulip-Flame traces an identity forming within radically divergent but interlocking systems: a family traumatized by the mother's suicide, a failed relationship, the practice of ballet, a garden-each strict, exacting. And with 'a crow's sky-knowing mind,' Honum in every case transfigures emotion by way of elegant language and formal restraint. Chloe Honum is 'one astounding flame' of a poet, and I predict a long-lasting one.

  Claudia Emerson

  Mother, Suicide, Book

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• Never far from a dining table, the characters in Heather A. Slomski's limpid and elegant debut collection are not given to melodramatics. Civility reigns, voices are not raised, much goes unsaid. But just beneath the sophisticated composure are longing, loss, heartbreak. And how intensely familiar is the table itself, which made this reader suddenly understand how much of our real life takes place there. Heather A. Slomski is truly a fresh voice on the scene, and The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons is that rare thing, a new book as innovative in its design as it is compulsively readable.

  Jaimy Gordon

  Real, Book, Character

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• Passion and courtesy are two polar opposite traits that serve to balance each other into a full-blooded whole. Without socialization, passion is a crude barbarian, and without passion, the elegant and polite are dead. Allow both passion and courtesy into your life in equal measure, and be complete.

  Vera Nazarian

  Passion, Opposites, Two

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• On vacation, you can wear all the colorful and casual clothing that you like, but you must always be elegant.

  Christian Dior

  Vacation, Casual, Clothings

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• I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts; but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere; and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue and freedom, would be my choice.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Health, Men

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: 1799-1803”, p.147, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Those elegant delights of jig and vaulting.

  Elijah Fenton

  Dancing, Delight

  William Congreve, Elijah Fenton (1779). “The Works of the English Poets”, p.333

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• From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:
  WAR IS PEACE
  FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
  IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

  George Orwell

  War, Party, Ignorance

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.107, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I was really blown away and inspired by everything that she [Audrey Hepburn] had done for children via and through UNICEF and I guess it really, really floored me in a way that I hadn't ever felt toward a public figure before. To see her kindness was inspiring and spoke to me as a person. She was so real and so elegant..I am also inspired by what Angelina Jolie is doing by traveling to places like Cambodia to help children by actually being there and being more involved.

  Liv Tyler

  Kindness, Children, Real

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• There was, I think, a feeling that the best science was that done in the simplest way. In experimental work, as in mathematics, there was "style" and a result obtained with simple equipment was more elegant than one obtained with complicated apparatus, just as a mathematical proof derived neatly was better than one involving laborious calculations. Rutherford's first disintegration experiment, and Chadwick's discovery of the neutron had a "style" that is different from that of experiments made with giant accelerators.

  J. A. Ratcliffe

  Science, Thinking, Simple

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• It's hard work to make a four-minute program look effortless and elegant.

  Katarina Witt

  Running, Work, Looks

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• I like it to be visually powerful, intellectually elegant, and above all, timeless.

  Massimo Vignelli

  Powerful, Timeless, All Time

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• What pursuit is more elegant than that of collecting the ignominies of our nature and transfixing them for show, each on the bright pin of a polished phrase?

  Logan Pearsall Smith

  Nature, Phrases, Pursuit

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• Black is always elegant. It is the most complete colour in the whole world, made of all the colours in the palette.

  Riccardo Tisci

  Black, World, Made

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• My idea of elegance – and this refers to women as well as men – is that someone is elegant when he or she shows a good knowledge of what fits them, where you can find naturalness and self-esteem. Not showing off. Elegance is the idea of showing an optimistic depiction of oneself, and to lose oneself in the frivolity of style and fashion.

  Stefano Pilati

  Fashion, Self Esteem, Optimistic

  "The End of Elegance". Interview with Costantino Della Gherardesca, www.vice.com. February 15, 2012.

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• Anywhere, anytime, I'd sacrifice the finest nuance for a laugh, the most elegant trope for a smile.

  Edward Abbey

  Sacrifice, Laughing, Nuance

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.31, RosettaBooks

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• I thought it was very elegant, a wonderful opening. The vegans seemed so surprised-God knows what they get to eat.

  Gael Greene

  Vegan, Wonderful, God Knows

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• One should put forth great effort in matters of learning. One should read books concerning military matters, and direct his attention exclusively to
  the virtues of loyalty and filial piety. Reading Chinese poetry, linked
  verse, and waka is forbidden. One will surely become womanized if he gives
  his heart such knowledge of such elegant and delicate refinements. Having
  been born into the house of a warrior, one's intentions should be to grasp
  the long and the short swords and to die

  Kato Kiyomasa

  Loyalty, Military, Reading

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• Simon Fraser University would make an elegant ruin

  Bruno Freschi

  Ruins, University

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• A model is a good model if first it interprets a wide range of observations in terms of a simple and elegant model, and second if the model makes definite predictions that can be tested, and possibly falsified, by observation.

  Stephen Hawking

  Simple, Firsts, Predictions

  "Audio: Stephen Hawking’s Best Quotes" by Adam Mann, www.wired.com. January 8, 2012.

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• My childhood was elegant homes, tree lined streets, the milkman, building backyard forts, droning airplanes, blue skies, picket fences, green grass, cherry trees. Middle America as it’s supposed to be. But on the cherry tree there’s this pitch oozing out – some black, some yellow – and millions of red ants crawling all over it. I discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath.

  David Lynch

  Beautiful, Home, Airplane

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• How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?

  Carl Sagan

  Prophet, Subtle, Bigger

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.71, Ballantine Books

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• Joanna Priestley is one of the most interesting and adept personal animators and filmmakers. I have enjoyed her work for years and been amazed at how she gets into her own thoughts onto the screen in a very elegant and focused way. You have to see this.

  Gus Van Sant

  Years, Interesting, Way

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• My dad had a personal style which was very attractive. It was quite reserved and quite elegant, and it was infectious.

  Bill Nighy

  Dad, Style, Attractive

  "Bill Nighy: 'I am not suddenly the greatest actor in the world'". Interview with Patrick Barkham, www.theguardian.com. November 18, 2009.

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