“Often a purple patch or two is tacked on to a serious work of high promise, to give an effect of colour.”

—  Horace, Ars Poetica

Inceptis gravibus plerumque et magna professis
purpureus, late qui splendeat, unus et alter
adsuitur pannus.
Source: Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (c. 18 BC), Line 14

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Often a purple patch or two is tacked on to a serious work of high promise, to give an effect of colour." by Horace?
Horace photo
Horace92
Roman lyric poet -65–-8 BC

Related quotes

Vitruvius photo

“They make a fine purple colour by treating bilberry in the same way and mixing it with milk.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book VII, Chapter XIV, Sec. 2

“Use materials with forceful MUSCULAR colours – the reddest of reds, the most purple of purples, the greenest of greens, intense yellows, orange, vermillion – and SKELETON tones of white, grey and black.”

Giacomo Balla (1871–1958) Italian artist

(Manuscript, 1914); as quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 148
Futurist Manifesto of Men's clothing,' 1913/1914

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“Faintly coloured like a dream of bliss, a half formed rainbow hung on the departing storm, as fearful of yet giving promise of peace.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Other Gift Books

“Among the common changes in forests over the past two centuries are loss of old forests, simplification of forest structure, decreasing size of forest patches, increasing isolation of patches, disruption of natural fire regimes, and increased road building, all of which have had negative effects on native biodiversity.”

Reed Noss (1952)

[Assessing and monitoring forest biodiversity: a suggested framework and indicators, Forest Ecology and Management, 115, 2–3, 22 March 1999, 135–146, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112798003946] (quote from p. 135)

Martin Luther photo

“Merit is a work for the sake of which Christ gives rewards. But no such work is to be found, for Christ gives by promise. Just as if a prince should say to me, "Come to me in my castle, and I will give you a hundred florins." I do a work, certainly, in going to the castle, but the gift is not given me as the reward of my work in going, but because the prince promised it to me.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 409.

“Grafting is, in effect, the healing of two common wounds. Commercial nurseries charge high prices for grafted stock, and the public bears the cost…”

Ken Kern American writer

p, 125
The Owner-Built Homestead (1977)

“Good scholars struggle to understand the world in an integral way (pedants bite off tiny bits and worry them to death). These visions of reality […] demand our respect, for they are an intellectual's only birthright. They are often entirely wrong and always flawed in serious ways, but they must be understood honorably and not subjected to mayhem by the excision of patches.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Eight Little Piggies

"Men of the Thirty-Third Division: An Essay on Integrity", p. 136
Eight Little Piggies (1993)

Eleanor Farjeon photo

“King's Cross!
What shall we do?
His Purple Robe
Is rent in two!”

Eleanor Farjeon Nursery Rhymes of London Town

King's Cross
Nursery Rhymes of London Town (1916)

Jean Dubuffet photo

“With respect to the use of this sparkling coloured material [butterfly wings, around 1955] – the constituent parts of which remain indistinguishable – with the aim of producing a very vivid effect of scintillation, I realised that, for me, this responds to needs of the same order as those that formerly led me, in many drawings and paintings, to organize my lines and patches of colour so that the objects represented would meld into everything around them, so that the result would be a sort of continuous, universal soup with an intensive flavour of life.”

Jean Dubuffet book Prospectus et tous écrits suivants

Source: 1960-70's, Prospectus et tous écrits suivants, 1967, p. 116

Derren Brown photo

“I decided that my magic had to change. That I had to give serious thought to presentation. That, in fact, my presentation of the effects is where my impact as a magician lies – I realised that it can turn a good effect into something artistic and stunning.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

Books, Pure Effect - Direct Mind Reading and Magical Artistry (2000)

Related topics