#ornament

Libel actions, when we look at them in perspective, are an ornament of a civilized society. They have replaced, after all, at least in most cases, a resort to weapons in defense of a reputation. ↗

— Henry Anatole Grunwald

#after #cases #civilized #civilized society #defense

Bad conduct soils the finest ornament more than filth. ↗

— Plautus

#conduct #filth #finest #more #ornament

Beauty doesn't need ornaments. Softness can't bear the weight of ornaments. ↗

— Munshi Premchand

#bear #need #ornaments #softness #weight

I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this; was it done with enjoyment, was the carver happy while he was about it? ↗

— John Ruskin

#ask #believe #carver #done #enjoyment

The Church knew what the psalmist knew: Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament. ↗

— Igor Stravinsky

#better #building #church #decoration #god

Hopes are like hair ornaments. Girls want to wear too many of them. When they become old women they look silly wearing even one. ↗

— Arthur Golden

#even #hair #hopes #like #look

Our notion of the perfect society embraces the family as its center and ornament, and this paradise is not secure until children appear to animate and complete the picture. ↗

— Amos Bronson Alcott

#appear #center #children #complete #embraces

All the revision in the world will not save a bad first draft: for the architecture of the thing comes, or fails to come, in the first conception, and revision only affects the detail and ornament, alas! ↗

— T. E. Lawrence

#alas #architecture #bad #come #comes

The Royal Navy of England hath ever been its greatest defense and ornament; it is its ancient and natural strength; the floating bulwark of the island. ↗

— William Blackstone

#been #bulwark #defense #england #ever

I will not subscribe to the argument that ornament increases the pleasure of the life of a cultivated person, or the argument which covers itself with the words: “But if the ornament is beautiful! ...” To me, and to all the cultivated people, ornament does not increase the pleasures of life. If I want to eat a piece of gingerbread I will choose one that is completely plain and not a piece which represents a baby in arms of a horserider, a piece which is covered over and over with decoration. The man of the fifteenth century would not understand me. But modern people will. The supporter of ornament believes that the urge for simplicity is equivalent to self-denial. No, dear professor from the College of Applied Arts, I am not denying myself! To me, it tastes better this way. ↗

— Adolf Loos

#modernism #ornament #art