WIST Quotations

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Sr. -- Letter (1882-03-18) to James Russell Lowell

Dave — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 15:50:59 +0000

I have always considered my face a convenience rather than an ornament.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
Letter (1882-03-18) to James Russell Lowell
(Source)

Leonardo da Vinci -- Notebooks, De Anatomia, folio A. 10 r. [tr. McCurdy (1939)]

Dave — Wed, 28 Sep 2022 22:36:29 +0000

Da Vinci Folio A. 10 r. Red bracket to the right side of the quoted text (which is written in mirrored form). (Source)

The art of procreation and the members employed therein are so repulsive, that if it were not for the beauty of the faces and the adornments of the actors and the pent-up impulse, nature would lose the human species.

[L’atto del coito e li membri a quello adoperati son di tanta bruttura che se non fussi le bellezze de’ volti e li ornamenti delli operanti e la frenata disposizione, la natura perderebbe la spezie umana.]

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) Italian artist, engineer, scientist, polymath
Notebooks, De Anatomia, folio A. 10 r. [tr. McCurdy (1939)]
(Source)

Windsor Anatomical manuscript A., folio 10 r / R. L. 19009R (Source (Italian)). Alternate translations:

The act of procreation and everything that has any relation to it is so disgusting that human beings would soon die out if it were not a traditional custom and if there were no pretty faces and sensuous dispositions.
[tr. Brill (1916), after Freud (1910)]

The act of procreation and anything that has any relation to it is so disgusting that human beings would soon die out if there were no pretty faces and sensuous dispositions.
[Variant tr. Brill (1916), after Freud (1910)]

The act of procreation and everything connected with it is so disgusting that mankind would soon die out if it were not an old-established custom and if there were not pretty faces and sensuous natures.
[tr. Tyson (1961), after Freud (1910)]

The act of coition and the members employed are so ugly that but for the beauty of the faces, the adornments of their partners and the frantic urge, Nature would lose the human race.
[tr. Dalwood (1962) after Bataille (1957)]

The act of copulation and the members employed are so repulsive, that if it were not for the beauty of faces and the adornments of the actors and unbridled passion, nature would lose the human race.
[tr. Armstrong (2013), after Nancy (2009)]

Bronowski, Jacob -- “The Abacus and the Rose” [Potts], Science and Human Values (1965 ed.)

Dave — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 17:54:59 +0000

I, having built a house, reject
The feud of eye and intellect,
And find in my experience proof
One pleasure runs from root to roof,
One thrust along a streamline arches
The sudden star, the budding larches.

The force that makes the winter grow
Its feathered hexagons of snow,
and drives the bee to match at home
Their calculated honeycomb,
Is abacus and rose combined.
An icy sweetness fills my mind,

A sense that under thing and wing
Lies, taut yet living, coiled, the spring.

Jacob Bronowski (1908-1974) Polish-English humanist and mathematician
“The Abacus and the Rose” [Potts], Science and Human Values (1965 ed.)
(Source)

Foglio, Phil -- Agatha H. And the Clockwork Princess (2012) [with Kaja Foglio]

Dave — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 18:11:15 +0000

It is true that most madboy devices are built for purely utilitarian purposes: I want to go faster; How can one person stack all of these starfish; I will gain the respect of my peers if I can turn this entire town into ham, and so on. But there are some things that burst forth from their creator’s brain simply because they want to make the world more aesthetically pleasing. So what if it doesn’t help one conquer the world? It looks awesome. It’s Art.

Phil Foglio (b. 1956) American writer, cartoonist
Agatha H. And the Clockwork Princess (2012) [with Kaja Foglio]
(Source)

Oliver, Mary -- Comments at Wellesley College (20 Oct 2010)

Dave — Tue, 25 Feb 2020 18:13:38 +0000

The universe could have been created ugly, and would have functioned. And yet there is beauty everywhere in creation. Beauty gives us an ache, to be worthy of that creation.

Mary Oliver (1935-2019) American poet
Comments at Wellesley College (20 Oct 2010)
(Source)

The last phrase is frequently paraphrased, "We need beauty because it makes us ache to be worthy of it."

Morris, William -- “The Beauty of Life,” lecture, Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design (19 Feb 1880)

Dave — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 18:14:44 +0000

That the beauty of life is a thing of no moment, I suppose few people would venture to assert, and yet most civilized people act as if it were of none, and in so doing are wronging themselves and those that are to come after them; for that beauty, which is what is meant by art, using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life, if we are to live as nature meant us to; that is, unless we are content to be less than men.

William Morris (1834-1896) British textile designer, writer, socialist activist
“The Beauty of Life,” lecture, Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design (19 Feb 1880)
(Source)

Bird, Brad -- Interview with Drew Tailor, IndieWire (20 Dec 2011)

Dave — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 17:26:18 +0000

If you explain the basics of any one of these ideas, they probably will sound as nutty as a cooking French rat or a silent film starring robots in a post-apocalyptic world. Each one of those films, when we were in preparation on them, the financial community said each one of them stunk and none of them had the ability to be a financial success. And then the film would come out and they’d go, “Well, they did it that time but the next one sounds like a piece of crap.”

Brad Bird (b. 1957) American director, animator and screenwriter [Phillip Bradley Bird]
Interview with Drew Tailor, IndieWire (20 Dec 2011)
(Source)

Parker, Robert -- Taming A Sea-Horse (1986)

Dave — Thu, 06 Apr 2017 17:20:24 +0000

I took a sip. It went surprisingly well with the veal. On the other hand, the fourth margarita goes surprisingly well with everything.

Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) American writer
Taming A Sea-Horse (1986)

Heinlein, Robert A. -- Friday [Dr. Baldwin] (1982)

Dave — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 12:48:43 +0000

We each have a moral obligation to conserve and preserve beauty in this world; there is none to waste.

Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Friday [Dr. Baldwin] (1982)

Shaftesbury, Earl of -- Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, Vol. 1, “A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm” (1711)

Dave — Fri, 05 Dec 2014 14:21:07 +0000

We may have an excellent Ear in Musick, without being able to perform in any kind. We may judge well of Poetry, without being Poets, or possessing the least of a Poetick Vein: But we can have no tolerable Notion of Goodness, without being tolerably good.

Anthony Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713) English politician and philosopher
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, Vol. 1, “A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm” (1711)

Bradbury, Ray -- Fahrenheit 451, “Coda” Afterword (1979 ed.)

Dave — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 12:29:32 +0000

For it is a mad world and it will get madder if we allow the minorities, be they dwarf or giant, orangutan or dolphin, nuclear-head or water-conversationalist, pro-computerologist or Neo-Luddite, simpleton or sage, to interfere with aesthetics. The real world is the playing ground for each and every group, to make or unmake laws. But the tip of the nose of my book or stories or poems is where their rights end and my territorial imperatives begin, run and rule. If Mormons do not like my plays, let them write their own. If the Irish hate my Dublin stories, let them rent typewriters. If teachers and grammar school editors find my jawbreaker sentences shatter their mushmilk teeth, let them eat stale cake dunked in weak tea of their own ungodly manufacture.

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) American writer, futurist, fabulist
Fahrenheit 451, “Coda” Afterword (1979 ed.)
(Source)

Adams, Douglas -- Dirk Gently No. 2, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, ch. 1 (1988)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the expression “as pretty as an airport.” Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk (Murmansk airport is the only exception of this otherwise infallible rule), and architects have on the whole tried to reflect this in their designs.

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English author, humorist, screenwriter
Dirk Gently No. 2, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, ch. 1 (1988)
(Source)

Opening words.

Variant: "It's no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase 'As pretty as an airport' appear."