Quotes About Aesthetics

Here we would notice that what we would call Japanese aesthetics (in contrast to Western aesthetics) is more concerned with process than with product, with the actual construction of a self than with self-expression. The

Civic participation depends on creativity, an (aesthetic) knack for reframing experience, and on a corollary freedom to adjust laws and practices in light of ever-new challenges. Without art, citizenship would shrink to compliance, as if society were a closed text. Reading lessons would stop at the factual "what is," rather than continue to the speculative "what if.

If a building looks better under construction than it does when finished, then it's a failure.

Beauty is variable, ugliness is constant.

The alternative to good design is bad design, not no design at all.

In the 19th century, you had bourgeois art without politics - an almost frozen idea of what beauty is.

The technology of the time dictated the way things looked.

One of the staples of discussion about basic aesthetic principles is that art has to exist for its own self and cannot be prostituted to advance any particular cause or point of view. Perfect nonsense, of course, but that doesn't keep it from being repeated ad nauseam.

Immodest and attractive is easy. Modest and repulsive is easy too. But modest and attractive is an art form.

Flowers whisper "Beauty!" to the world, even as they fade, wilt, fall.

There is nothing more vulgar than sophisticated kitsch.

La cultura de masas no ofrece a sus clientes una catarsis emocional ni tampoco una experiencia estética, porque estas cosas requieren esfuerzo. La cultura de masas es, en la mejor de las hipótesis, un reflejo vulgarizado de la Alta Cultura y, en el peor, un íncubo moral, un Kulturkatzenjammer

No life is well-rounded without the subtle inspiration of beauty.

We need to have a taste factor in our life. It isn't about what's popular; it's about what's really good.

We delight in the mere sight of the delicate glow of fading rays clinging to the surface of a dusky wall, there to live out what little life remains to them.

But I don't think that sculpture belongs in everyday life like a table does, or like a chair.

But the moment a bird was dead, no matter how beautiful it had been in life, the pleasure of possession became blunted for me.

Aesthetic life is not something sophisticated - that's a humanistic lie. Aesthetic life is as integral to being human as building sandcastles on the beach and giving your children names.

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful.

Vegetarianism should not be anything moral or religious. It is a question of aesthetics: one's sensitivity, one's respect, one's reverence for life.

Beauty is not extravagance; beauty is life.

Beauty is assailed from two directions - by the cult of ugliness in the arts, and by the cult of utility in everyday life.

It may sound ambitious, but I really hope that modern design will spread all around the globe.

I think there is always a need for pure design. With pure design, you don't need so much decoration.