Adornment Quotes

It is the manner of all good boys to be careless of apparel, and take no pride in adornment ~ R.D. Blackmore

My hope is that the white and the black will be united in perfect love and fellowship, with complete unity and brotherhood. Associate with each other, think of each other, and be like a rose garden. Anyone who goes into a rose garden will see various roses, white, pink, yellow, red, all growing together and replete with adornment. Each one accentuates the beauty of the other. Were all of one color, the garden would be monotonous to the eye. If they were all white or yellow or red, the garden would lack variety and attractiveness; but when the colors are varied, white, pink, yellow, red, there will be the greatest beauty. ~ Abdu'l- Baha

(It is interesting that the words "cosmos" and "cosmetic" have the same root, the Greek word for "adornment" or "arrangement.") ~ Jim Holt

Courage is the fairest adornment of youth. ~ Erich Maria Remarque

The man had added to his body in a way that was brave and timeless and beyond adornment. ~ Sarah Hall

As long as there are poor people in the world, as long as there are people who are deprived and handicapped in the world, if we are sensitive, we will not load ourselves with unnecessary adornment. ~ Eknath Easwaran

Why was fabulousness important? The world was a scary, sad place and adornment was one of the only ways she knew to make herself and the people around her forget their troubles. That was why she had opened her store almost five years ago. Everyone who entered the little square white house with miniature Corinthian columns, cherub statues, and French windows seemed to leave carrying armloads of newly handmade and well spruced-up recycled vintage clothing, humming sixties girl-group songs, seventies glam and punk, eighties New Wave one-hit wonders, or nineties grunge, doing silly dances, and not caring what anyone thought.
Weetzie loved the old dresses she found and sold, because they had their own secret histories. She always wondered where, when, and how they had been worn. What they had seen. Old dresses were like old ladies. ~ Francesca Lia Block

A single diamond brooch was her only adornment (one good piece, ladies, and choose it well; everything makes a statement, nothing speaks quite so loudly as cheapness). ~ Kristin Hannah

The third order, called Corinthian , is an imitation of the slenderness of a maiden; for the outlines and limbs of maidens, being more slender on account of their tender years, admit of prettier effects in the way of adornment. ~ Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

Nakedness makes us democratic, adornment makes us individuals. ~ Liberace

The impulse for personal adornment is hard to stamp out. ~ Virginia Postrel

Adornment, what a science! Beauty, what a weapon! Modesty, what elegance! ~ Coco Chanel

The problem with cosmetics exists only when women feel invisible or inadequate without them. The problem with working out exists only if women hate ourselves when we don't. When a woman is forced to adorn herself to buy a hearing, when she needs her grooming in order to protect her identity, when she goes hungry in order to keep her job, when she must attract a lover so that she can take care of her children, that is exactly what makes "beauty" hurt. Because what hurts women about the beauty myth is not adornment, or expressed sexuality, or time spent grooming, or the desire to attract a lover. Many mammals groom, and every culture uses adornment. "Natural" and "unnatural" are not the terms in question. The actual struggle is between pain and pleasure, freedom and compulsion. ~ Naomi Wolf

Truth needs no adornment. ~ William Zinsser

She chose her colors carefully. She dressed slowly, she adjusted her petals one by one. She did not wish to present herself all rumpled like the poppies. She would appear in the full radiance of her beauty. Oh, yes! She was very flirtatious! And her mysterious adornment lasted for days and days. Then one morning, exactly at sunrise, she suddenly showed herself. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

The real issue has nothing to do with whether women wear makeup or don't, gain weight or lose it, have surgery or shun it, dress up or down, make our clothing and faces and bodies into works of art or ignore adornment altogether. The real problem is our lack of choice. ~ Naomi Wolf

He had come to us only three years earlier, but had already won general sympathy, mainly because he "knew how to bring society together." His house was never without guests, and it seemed he would have been unable to live without them. He had to have guests to dinner every day, even if only two, even if only one, but without guests he would not sit down to eat. He gave formal dinners, too, under all sorts of pretexts, sometimes even the most unexpected. The food he served, though not refined, was abundant, the cabbage pies were excellent, and the wines made up in quantity for what they lacked in quality. In the front room stood a billiard table, surrounded by quite decent furnishings; that is, there were even paintings of English racehorses in black frames on the walls, which, as everyone knows, constitute a necessary adornment of any billiard room in a bachelor's house. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Why couldn't she have slid it under the door? he wondered. Why couldn't she have folded it? It looked just like any other note she would leave him, like, Could you try to fix the broken knocker? or I'll be back soon, don't worry. It was so strange to him that such a different kind of note - I had to do it for myself - could look exactly the same: trivial, mundane, nothing. He could have hated her for leaving it there in plain sight, and he could have hated her for the plainness of it, a message without adornment, without any small clue to indicate that yes, this is important, yes, this is the most painful note I've ever written, yes, I would sooner die than have to write this again. Where were the dried teardrops? Where was the tremor in the script? ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Adornment, exoticism, affectation are all willed decadent strategies meant to pervert the texts they made. Decadent texts often live in their descriptive excursions, in their evocation of dreams, mysterious places and states of mind, in their excess of words, not events. The surface of the texts, the sound of the words, point to themselves as manufactured, as illusion. The decadents attempted to create texts that announced themselves as artifice. ~ Asti Hustvedt

I thought I should ask of thee---but I dared not---the rose wreath thou hadst on thy neck. Thus I waited for the morning, when thou didst depart, to find a few fragments on the bed. And like a beggar I searched in the dawn only for a stray petal or two.

Ah me, what is it I find? What token left of thy love? It is no flower, no spices, no vase of perfumed water. It is thy mighty sword, flashing as a flame, heavy as a bolt of thunder. The young light of morning comes through the window and spread itself upon thy bed. The morning bird twitters and asks, `Woman, what hast thou got?' No, it is no flower, nor spices, nor vase of perfumed water---it is thy dreadful sword.

I sit and muse in wonder, what gift is this of thine. I can find no place to hide it. I am ashamed to wear it, frail as I am, and it hurts me when press it to my bosom. Yet shall I bear in my heart this honour of the burden of pain, this gift of thine.

From now there shall be no fear left for me in this world, and thou shalt be victorious in all my strife. Thou hast left death for my companion and I shall crown him with my life. Thy sword is with me to cut asunder my bonds, and there shall be no fear left for me in the world.

From now I leave off all petty decorations. Lord of my heart, no more shall there be for me waiting and weeping in corners, no more coyness and sweetness of demeanour. Thou hast given me thy sword for adornment. No more doll's decorations for me! ~ Rabindranath Tagore

Truth doesn't need elaboration or embellishment; it can stand on its own two legs. All the adornment in the world doesn't make the truth any more true. ~ Philip Gulley

When Elizabeth finally descended the stairs on her way to the dining room she was two hours late. Deliberately.
"Good heavens, you're tardy, my dear!" Sir Francis said, shoving back his chair and rushing to the doorway where Elizabeth had been standing, trying to gather her courage to do what needed to be done. "Come and meet my guests," he said, drawing her forward after a swift, disappointed look at her drab attire and severe coiffure. "We did as you suggested in your note and went ahead with supper. What kept you abovestairs so long?"
"I was at prayer," Elizabeth said, managing to look him straight in the eye.
Sir Francis recovered from his surprise in time to introduce her to the three other people at the table-two men who resembled him in age and features and two women of perhaps five and thirty who were both attired in the most shockingly revealing gowns Elizabeth had ever seen.
Elizabeth accepted a helping of cold meat to silence her protesting stomach while both women studied her with unhidden scorn. "That is a most unusual ensemble you're wearing, I must say," remarked the woman named Eloise. "Is it the custom where you come from to dress so…simply?"
Elizabeth took a dainty bite of meat. "Not really. I disapprove of too much personal adornment." She turned to Sir Francis with an innocent stare. "Gowns are expensive. I consider them a great waste of money."
Sir Francis was suddenly inclined to agree, particularly since he intended to kee ~ Judith McNaught

The day will one day come--or what of the long-promised kingdom of heaven?--when a woman, instead of spending anxious thought on the adornment of her own outward person, will seek with might the adornment of the inward soul of another, and will make that her crown of rejoicing. Nay, are there none such even now? The day will come when a man, rather than build a great house for the overflow of a mighty hospitality, will give himself, in the personal labor of outgoing love, to build spiritual houses like St. Paul--a higher art than any of man's invention. O my brother, what were it not for thee to have a hand in making thy brother beautiful! ~ George MacDonald

The public examination of homosexuality in our contemporary life is still so coated with distasteful moral connotations that even a reviewer is bound to wonder uneasily why he was selected to evaluate a book on the subject, and to assert defensively at the outset that he is happily married, the father of four children and the one-time adornment of his college boxing, track and tennis teams. ~ Sydney J. Harris

What makes an amazing artist? It's not his ability to impress but his skill in touching people's lives through his craft. When he does even a simple piece of work with not much adornment (fanciful words, colors) and it moves the hearts of his audience, it is considered to be a masterpiece! A true artist lets people enter a different kind of sanctuary out of the conventional. What makes his work standout is its uniqueness -if it has a HEART. ~ Elizabeth E. Castillo

The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity. ~ William Strunk Jr.

I know change is possible, I know there is an alternative, because I live a completely different life to the one I was born with. I also know that the solution is not fame or money or any transient adornment of the individual. The only Revolution that can really change the world is the one in your own consciousness, and mine has already begun. ~ Russell Brand

The abbreviators of works do injury to knowledge and to love.Of what value is he who,in order to abbreviate the parts of those things of which he professes to give complete knowledge,leaves out the greater part of the things of which the whole is composed?Oh human stupidity!You don't see that you are falling into the same error as one who strips a tree of its adornment of branches full of leaves,intermingled with fragrant flowers or fruit in order to demonstrate that the tree is good for making planks ~ Leonardo Da Vinci

The elegance of honesty needs no adornment. ~ Mary Browne

The costume of women should be suited to her wants and necessities. It should conduce at once to her health, comfort, and usefulness; and, while it should not fail also to conduce to her personal adornment, it should make that end of secondary importance ~ Amelia Bloomer

But the boy protected Yorda from the shadows-that-walk-alone. He took her hand, defended her, swung his thin arm, and fought with his tiny frame, driving them back. If the shades dragged her into their realm, she would once again become a prisoner, and the boy would turn to stone, a sad adornment in the castle. Yorda knew this. But the boy did not
even as he did not know that Yorda was the property of the queen of the castle
and he protected her. ~ Miyuki Miyabe

Beauty and art, no doubt, pervade all business of life like a kindly genius, and form the bright adornment of all our surroundings, both mental and material, soothing the sadness of our condition and the embarrassments of real life, killing time in entertaining fashion, and where there's nothing to be achieved, occupying the place of what is vicious, better, at any rate, than vice. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

In its relation to the reality of daily life, the high culture of the past was many things opposition and adornment, outcry and resignation. But it was also the appearance of the realm of freedom: the refusal to behave. ~ Herbert Marcuse

Vanity is by far my favorite of all sins, and the camera lens is the ultimate vanity mirror. The camera captures all moods and nuances; immortalizes the soft and silky continuum that is humanity. Those still life moments seem so fluid, so representative of continuity. They are a single moment captured, yet an eternity expressed. All your youth; all your ages, captured and expressed in a single click.

Of all the indulgences, vanity is certainly my favorite which we should otherwise resist, but are inexplicably captivated by and addicted. What other animal would spend so much time pouting and preening for its reflection? Only humanity would participate in such self-adoration.

You would think we have the most colorful feathers or softest of manes. Rather, we are a naked biped that feels incomplete without some decorative element, accessory, or embellishment of the self. We are intoxicated by the image of the body, no different than we are seduced by fine wines, foods, or mind altering elements. We devour the skin, and peel away clothes as if they were the skin of some tropical fruit, covering a colorful and juicy interior. We hunt for bodily pleasures, and collect them as prizes; show them off in social situations as if our companions were some sort of extended adornment to ourselves.

We are revealed in our sensuality. To touch beneath the surface; to connect beyond facades, that unattainable discourse between individuals is put tentatively wi ~ A.E. Samaan

Measured by the clock click of the serpent-minute
the explosion
after which it is proper to appreciate that
the brutal fist of the terrorist crack of dawn has just
planted at the top of the most forgotten poui
its adornment of fire
its dolmen of blood
its flag of rage and renewal ~ Aime Cesaire

Since we have received everything from the Gods, and it is right to pay the giver some tithe of his gifts, we pay such a tithe of possessions in votive offering, of bodies in gifts of (hair and) adornment, and of life in sacrifices. ~ Sallust

It's a toss-up whether the scenery or the adornment of Marilyn Monroe is the feature of greater attraction in River of No Return. The mountainous scenery is spectacular, but so in her own way is Miss Monroe. ~ Bosley Crowther

Anyone who has been to India - specifically Rajasthan, the rich and kingly region in the country's northwest - knows that when it comes to adornment, Indians do not think like other people. ~ Hanya Yanagihara

By the care she lavishes on her toilet, by the concern she has for her beauty set off by her adornment, a woman regards herself as an object always trying to attract men's attention. ~ Georges Bataille

The little prince, who was present at the first appearance of a huge bud, felt
at once that some sort of miraculous apparition must emerge from it. But
the flower was not satisfied to complete the preparations for her beauty in the
shelter of her green chamber. She chose her colours with the greatest care. She
adjusted her petals one by one. She did not wish to go out into the world all
rumpled, like the field poppies. It was only in the full radiance of her beauty
that she wished to appear. Oh, yes! She was a coquettish creature! And her
mysterious adornment lasted for days and days. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

Although some people think women are inferior to men, I think it's a privilege to be a woman. There are so many fun things afforded to the female gender such as adornment of self, the freedom to communicate with gestures, and the freedom to express one's emotions.
I don't know what I'd do without my red backpack purse, and I am attached to my PDA with the pink monogrammed leather case. I've developed favorites among the many items in my wardrobe, and I like experimenting with accessories like hats, scarves, watches and belts.
I've become fairly proficient at applying make-up, and I now know the importance of a good facial cleanser and moisturizer. ~ Jessica Angelina Birch

Such is our impatience, such our hatred of procrastination, to everything but the amendment of our practices and the adornment of our nature, one would imagine we were dragging Time along by force, and not he us. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Enoch predicted that "the demons and the spirits of the angelic apostates would turn into idolatry all the elements, all the adornment of the universe, and all things contained in the heaven, the sea, and the earth, that they might be consecrated as God in opposition to God." All things, therefore, does human error worship, except the Founder of all himself. The images of those things are idols; the consecration of the images is idolatry. ~ Tertullian

Body adornments show that we're aware of our bodies and expect others to be aware as well. ~ Nora Roberts

With your permission, I will instruct the jeweler I work with to build the frames you've drawn."
"Make them in silver," Leo said. He paused, regarding Catherine with a faint smile. "And have him put a touch of filigree on the earpieces. Nothing vulgar... keep it delicate."
Catherine shook her head immediately. "Such adornment is expensive and unnecessary."
"Do it nevertheless," Leo said to the doctor, his gaze still holding Catherine's. "Your face deserves adornment. I would hardly put a masterpiece in an ordinary frame, would I? ~ Lisa Kleypas

Just where she had paused, the brook chanced to form a pool so smooth and quiet that it reflected a perfect image of her little figure, with all the brilliant picturesqueness of her beauty, in its adornment of flowers and wreathed foliage ... It was strange, the way in which Pearl stood, looking so steadfastly at them through the dim medium of the forest gloom, herself, meanwhile, all glorified with a ray of sunshine ... ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

I'd rather be befriended as an aimless lost soul than be befriended for adornment, gain or goal. ~ Donna Lynn Hope

The adornment of the body is a human need. I don't see anything superficial about it unless your life becomes very materialistic. ~ David LaChapelle

Actually is a word that has been degraded to adornment and punctuations, but it has a meaning too: it means right now, while we are on it. ~ Megan K. Stack

I think part of your attraction to him is the draw of the unknown, of being different, even special. He is so out of the ordinary that you feel pulled to that because you yourself are not so ordinary. You're alone. And sometimes the pain of so much loss is written across your face. You wear it like an adornment and that causes other people to wonder about you; they can't relate to you and what you've been through, but you can relate to him in his dark state. ~ Donna Lynn Hope

THE ROBIN
O Robin, sing! for the secret of eternity is in song.
I wish I were as you, free from prisons and chains.
I wish I were as you; a soul flying over the valleys,
Sipping the light as wine is sipped from ethereal cups.
I wish I were asyou, innocent, contented and happy
Ignoring the future and forgetting the past.
I wish I were as you in beauty, grace and elegance
With the wind spreading my wings for adornment by the dew.
I wish I were as you in beauty, a thought floating above the land
Pouring out my songs between the forest and the sky.
O Robin, sing! and disperse my anxiety.
I listen to the voice within your voice
that whispers in my inner ear; ~ Kahlil Gibran

Most records, you build from the drums and bass up. This one, we started with the vocals in Nashville and recorded them live with just the guitars and tried to make that complete and lovely-sounding without any adornment at all. I really wanted to get something with the vocal that I've never gotten before Armchair Apocrypha. ~ Andrew Bird

The dreams of childhood - it's airy fables, its graceful, beautiful, humane, impossible adornments of the world beyond; so good to be believed in once, so good to be remembered when outgrown ... ~ Charles Dickens

But I must start at the beginning, if I can find it. Beginnings are elusive things. Just when you think you have hold of one, you look back and see another, earlier beginning, and an earlier one before that. Even if you start with "Chapter One: I am Born," you still have the problem of antecedents, of cause and effect. Why is young David fatherless? Because, Dickens tells us, his father died of a delicate constitution. Yes, but where did this mortal delicacy come from? Dickens doesn't say, so we're left to speculate. A congenital defect, perhaps, inherited from his mother, whose own mother had married beneath her to spite her cruel father, who'd been beaten as a child by a nursemaid who was forced into service when her faithless husband abandoned her for a woman he chanced to meet when his carriage wheel broke in front of the milliner's where she'd gone to have her hat trimmed. If we begin there, young David is fatherless because his great-great-grandfather's nursemaid's husband's future mistress's hat needed adornment. ~ Hillary Jordan

Humanity can be roughly divided into three sorts of people - those who find comfort in literature, those who find comfort in personal adornment, and those who find comfort in food; ~ Elizabeth Goudge

Grace is so great an adornment for a rider, and at the same time so important a means to the knowledge of all that which is necessary for persons aspiring to become riders, that such persons should willingly sped the time required to obtain that quality at the outside of their endeavors. ~ Francois Robichon De La Gueriniere