#elegance

There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult. ↗

— C.A.R. Hoare

#design

The way in which mathematicians and physicists and historians talk is quite different, and what a physicist means by physical intuition and what a mathematician means by beauty or elegance are things worth thinking about. ↗

— Clifford Geertz

#beauty #different #elegance #historians #intuition

I feel that my environment reflects my belief in the grace and art and elegance of living simply. ↗

— Bell Hooks

#belief #elegance #environment #feel #grace

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) ↗

— Alain de Botton

#complexity #complicated #construction #design #elegance

The elegance and the quality - the talent is always in the literature. I start with the word and I base everything on that. It doesn't make any difference to me. ↗

— Kate Mulgrew

#any #base #difference #elegance #everything

The elegance is as physical, as moral quality that has nothing common with the clothing. You can see a countrywoman more elegant than one so called elegant woman. ↗

— Karl Lagerfeld

#clothing #country #countrywoaman #designer #elegance

I admire those people who hold on to their elegance in old age but I'd rather have fun. ↗

— Heather Graham

#age #elegance #fun #have fun #hold

If mathematics is to be understood widely, we need to emphasise its elegance and its applications. Sometimes it seems that universities want to emphasise how difficult it is! ↗

— Johnny Ball

#difficult #elegance #emphasise #how #mathematics

Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future. ↗

— Coco Chanel

#already #elegance #escaped #future #just

Why has elegance found so little following? That is the reality of it. Elegance has the disadvantage, if that's what it is, that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it. ↗

— Edsger Dijkstra

#appreciate #disadvantage #education #elegance #following