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5aa4483
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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
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violence
inspirational
complexity
elegance
simplicity
genius
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E.F. Schumacher |
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11def52
|
Braininess is not attractive unless combined with some signs of elegance; class.
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beauty
brain
elegance
class
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Alice Munro |
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0f2edb9
|
For us to deem a work of architecture elegant, it is hence not enough that it look simple: we must feel that the simplicity it displays has been hard won, that it flows from the resolution of demanding technical or natural predicament. Thus we call the Shaker staircase in Pleasant Hill elegant because we know--without ever having constructed one ourselves--that a staircase is a site complexity, and that combinations of treads, risers and banisters rarely approach the sober intelligibility of the Sharkers' work. We deem a modern Swiss house elegant because we not how seamlessly its windows have been joined to their concrete walls, and how neatly the usual clutter of construction has been resolved away. We admire starkly simple works that we intuit would, without immense effort, have appeared very complicated. (p 209)
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construction
complicated
complexity
elegance
design
intuition
simplicity
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Alain de Botton |
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f47904a
|
The noble buoyancy of her attitude, its suggestion of soaring grace, revealed the touch of poetry in her beauty that Selden always felt in her presence, yet lost the sense of when he was not with her. Its expression was now so vivid that for the first time he seemed to see before him the real Lily Bart, divested of all the trivialities of her little world, and catching for a moment a note of that eternal harmony of which her beauty was a part.
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|
love
lawrence-selden
lily-bart
edith-wharton
the-house-of-mirth
elegance
grace
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Edith Wharton |
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d533e1c
|
Though Julian could be marvelously kind in difficult circumstances of all sorts, I sometimes got the feeling that he was less pleased by kindness itself than by the elegance of the gesture.
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|
kindness
julian-morrow
the-secret-history
elegance
fake
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Donna Tartt |
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1367c5b
|
There might be cheats or possible cheats amongst them, men who beat their wives, men with perverse instincts, greedy men, cowardly men, lying men; but the elegance of the room invested each one with a kind of aristocracy.
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cards
cheaters
elegance
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Ian Fleming |
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c925a75
|
- 'Poise is perfect balance, an equanimity of body and mind, complete composure whatever the social scene. Elegant dress, immaculate grooming, and perfect deportment all contribute to the attainment of self-confidence.' -
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elegance
equanimity
composure
deportment
poise
self-confidence
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Muriel Spark |