[T]he art that people are drawn toâat an individual and collective levelâreflects much about what is missing from their lives. The particular register of emotions we're sensitive to in the visual sphere hints at what we long for, but don't reliably have a connection to, in ourselves.
The Good Enough Parent 2021, p.83
Tagged: quotations
Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome.
Samuel Johnson
Beauty is essential. It is never a trade-off. Make the most of beauty and never sacrifice it at the altar of expediency. It is too high a price.
Add nothing ugly. Do not accept any existing ugliness as fixed. Remove and change it if possible, otherwise modify or screen it.
Monty Don Down to Earth, p.32
The not-so-straight and the not-so-perfect is the lovely thing of life. And thereâs somebody out there trying to make the world straight and perfectâŚWhen the world will be straight and perfect in their eyes, will that be straight and perfect, or will it be worse?
Analogue People in a Digital Age Twopair Films
I donât have any phones. Theyâre just not good for anything. Theyâre handy for loads of stuff, but I canât think of anything thatâs better because youâve got them. I think thereâs a risk of people becoming zombies with Facebook and social media. Itâs really awful, that side of things.
Aphex Twin âSyroâ
If you think something is clever and sophisticated bewareâit is probably self-indulgence.
Don Norman The Psychology of Everyday Things
For the mathematician, an argument is either perfect or else it is wrong ⌠He calls this ârigorous thinking.â The typical engineer calls it âhair-splitting.â
Thornton C. Fry, 1941
Taken from The Information by James Gleick, p.196.
From Jef Raskinâs The Humane Interface:
You can have any combination of features the Air Ministry desires, so long as you do not also require that the resulting airplane fly.
Willy Messerschmidt
If you can understand the ordinary, the simple things in life, the mind can be opened to foster harmony in humanity, promote harmony with nature, discipline the mind, and quiet the heart. This in turn affects our output as human beings.
Mark Robinson
I photograph to see what the world looks like in photographs.
Garry Winogrand
It's better to hide [complexity] from people, than to force them to learn about it and deal with it. Tom Dale on JSJ: Specialized vs Monolithic (at around 18:20)
London is such a constantly evolving city. It has many layers of systems in place, but nothing really quite works.
If you're working in an environment which doesn't necessarily work very well, it's a great environment to try and make things work well. We need contrast and tension to be able to create.
Sam Hecht
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat
Lily Tomlin
Whilst looking for a synonym for "slowness" I came across The World Institute of Slowness. It has some great quotes (like the one above), and some interesting resources referencing physicist Richard Feynman, and Andy Goldsworthy: