“By making this chair five times as expensive, three times heavier, half as comfortable, and only a fraction as beautiful, an architect can make a good name for himself.”

— Poul Henningsen

cited in: Eric Reiss (2012), Usable Usability: Simple Steps for Making Stuff Better, p. 17: About the iconic Bentwood chair from Thonet.

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Poul Henningsen 1

Danish architect 1894–1967

Donald Judd (1928–1994) artist

Source: 1990s, "It’s Hard to Find a Good Lamp," 1993, p. 21

“A great book is a homing device
For navigating paradise.

A good book somehow makes you care
About the comfort of a chair.

A bad book owes to many trees
A forest of apologies.”

J. Patrick Lewis (1942) American children's writer and poet

“Somebody can sit at home and say, "What does this guy have to complain about?" But at the same time it's a comfortable chair to be sitting in and make those judgments. When all of a sudden you're successful and sought after overnight, you are instantly opened to a lot of sides of humanity that the average person is never going to see. And those can often be pretty disheartening, and it can make somebody pretty lonely.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

Soundgarden Era

“Time is everything; five minutes make the difference between victory and defeat.”

Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) Royal Navy Admiral

Frothingham, Jessie Peabody. Sea Fighters from Drake to Farragut New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902. p. 314
1800s

“15 Proposition. The 42. moneths, a thousand two hundred and three score propheticall daies, three greate daies and a halfe, and a time, times, and a halfe a time mentioned in Daniel, & in the Revelation, are all one date.”

John Napier (1550–1617) Scottish mathematician

A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John (1593), The First and Introductory Treatise

“One can only forget about time by making use of it.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

On ne peut oublier le temps qu'en s'en servant.
Journaux intimes (1864–1867; published 1887), Mon cœur mis à nu (1864)

“If it took half the revenue of the nation, nobody would grudge it, nor even if it took it all save a bare pittance. But in truth the expense of educating ten thousand youth is not ten nor five times that of educating one thousand. The principle which makes all operations on a large scale proportionally cheaper than on a small scale holds as to education also.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25439 (1888), Ch. 21.

“It is only our conception of time that makes us call the Last Judgment by this name. It is, in fact, a kind of martial law.”

Franz Kafka book The Zürau Aphorisms

40
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)

“I never want to do material that makes people laugh at the expense of making other people feel bad - not to say I'm not guilty of that at times. …”

Jim Gaffigan (1966) comedian, actor, author

Stephanie Bouchard (February 15, 2007) "Pasty-faced and proud of it - Comedian Jim Gaffigan brings his 'Beyond the Pale Tour' to Merrill Auditorium", Portland Press Herald, Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc., D10.
Context: I do kind of aspire to do comedy that appeals to a wide range of audiences and doesn't divide people. I never want to do material that makes people laugh at the expense of making other people feel bad - not to say I'm not guilty of that at times.... I try and make humor out of the really important issues of the day, like Hot Pockets and elevators and not wanting to get out of bed.

“When I look at things, I always see the space they occupy. I always want the space to reappear, to make a comeback, because it's lost space when there's something in it. If I see a chair in a beautiful space, no matter how beautiful the chair is, it can never be as beautiful to me as the plain space.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 10: Atmosphere

“By making this chair five times as expensive, three times heavier, half as comfortable, and only a fraction as beautiful, an architect can make a good name for himself.”

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