“To achieve harmony in bad taste is the height of elegance.”
Jean Genet book The Thief's Journal
The Thief's Journal (1949)
“Elegance is necessarily unnatural, only achieveable at great expense. If you just do something, it won't be elegant, but if you do it and then see what might be more elegant, and do it again, you might, after an unknown number of iterations, get something that is very elegant.”
Re: Filk, puns, and other time wasting. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/4bda6a98e5cf0bce (Usenet article). <br class="br">Usenet articles, Miscellaneous
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Erik Naggum118
Norwegian computer programmer 1965–2009Related quotes
Barend Cornelis Koekkoek (1803–1862) painter from the Northern Netherlands
(original Dutch, citaat van B.C. Koekkoek:) Wilt gij zien wat er van een vlak, eenvoudig landelijk tafereel, als hetzelve den stempel der natuur, het merk der waarheid draagt, schoons en bevalligs kan gemaakt worden? Beschouwt dan de werken van onze grooten Schelfhout. Daarin zult gij de eenvoudige natuur op het sierlijkst, maar tevens met eene getrouwheid en waarheid, wat alleen een Schelfhout vermag, voorgesteld vinden.
Source: Herinneringen aan en Mededeelingen van…' (1841), p. 243
Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist
are not a dispensable luxury, but a crucial matter that decides between success and failure?
1980s
Source: EWD648.
Charles Caleb Colton (1777–1832) British priest and writer
Vol. I; LXXI
Lacon (1820)
“Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker
Diary of an Unknown (1988), On Invisibility
Context: Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility. In that case, you ask me, of what use is it? Of no use. Who will see it? No one. Which does not prevent it from being an outrage to modesty, though its exhibitionism is squandered on the blind. It is enough for poetry to express a personal ethic, which can then break away in the form of a work. It insists on living its own life. It becomes the pretext for a thousand misunderstandings that go by the name of glory...
Rita Hayworth (1918–1987) American actress, dancer and director
Article written as guest columnist for Arlene Dahl, headlined "Rita Hayworth Sees Simplicity As Part Of Beauty" in The Toledo Blade (11 March 1964)
Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author
During his conversation with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, as quoted in The Telegraph, in . In " Richard Dawkins: I can't be sure God does not exist http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9102740/Richard-Dawkins-I-cant-be-sure-God-does-not-exist.html"