Elegance Quotes

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common - this is my symphony. ~ William Ellery Channing

His account books reflect a concern with fashion, as shown by periodic visits to a French tailor, and his sartorial elegance is confirmed in portraits. In one painting, he wears a double-breasted coat with brass buttons and gilt-edged lapels, his neck swathed delicately in a ruffled lace jabot. ~ Ron Chernow

A city that had learned to make good bread had learned to make good cake also. A city that built itself up by good sense and industry had formed a powerful secondary intention of elegance. ~ Rebecca West

Decency is the essence of morality, It spreads out like the scent of a rose and shows to world your elegance and graciousness. ~ Nighat Hafiz

Dante, this
is Annabelle."
No. No way. That name is
reserved for females with grace
and elegance, not this girl. This girl
is ... beastly. "Annabelle," I say.
"It suits you. ~ Victoria Scott

Jazz is improvisation and syncopation, with resilience and flow, with earthy elegance, nuance and subtlety, with the integrity of individual expression within (usually) a group context, with true democracy in action. ~ Greg Thomas

I couldn't define my style; that's impossible. I like comfort and elegance with a bit of glamour thrown in. If I like something, I'll wear it for years. ~ Jemima Khan

There was a period when I believed stuff meant something. I thought that if you had matching side chairs and a sofa that harmonized and some beautiful lamps to light them you would have a home, that elegance signaled happiness. ~ Anna Quindlen

There is no elegance or character of any sort in [the forsythia's] structure. Its crude expose of colour is undiluted by foliage. And in its most popular cultivars the flowers are packed into such congested lumps that it is like being asked to swallow a helping of cornflour pudding. ~ Christopher Lloyd

Elegance is not everything. ~ Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi

No. No way. That name is reserved for females with grace and elegance, not this girl. This girl is ... beastly. ~ Victoria Scott

In temperance there is ever cleanliness and elegance. ~ Joseph Joubert

The ultimate arbiter of truth is experiment, not the comfort one derives from one's a priori beliefs, nor the beauty or elegance one ascribes to one's theoretical models. ~ Lawrence M. Krauss

Conversation sprang up as to the elegance and realism of her acting -- the sort of conversation that is always repeated and is always the same. In the midst of the conversation Fedor Petrovich glanced at Ivan Ilych and became silent. The others also looked at him and grew silent. Ivan ~ Leo Tolstoy

You can't learn how to be elegant; you can only learn how to avoid mistakes. The rest is instinct. Elegance is about the way you cross your legs, not the label or the newest clothes from the latest collection. ~ Carine Roitfeld

Much as I admired the elegance of physical theories, which at that time geology wholly lacked, I preferred a life in the woods to one in the laboratory. ~ J. Tuzo Wilson

Under his buckskin riding-coat he wore a black vest and the cravat and collar of a churchman. A young priest, at his devotions; and a priest in a thousand, one knew at a glance. His bowed head was not that of an ordinary man, - it was built for the seat of a fine intelligence. His brow was open, generous, reflective, his features handsome and somewhat severe. There was a singular elegance about the hands below the fringed cuffs of the buckskin jacket. Everything showed him to be a man of gentle birth - brave, sensitive, courteous. His manners, even when he was alone in the desert, were distinguished. He had a kind of courtesy toward himself, toward his beasts, toward the juniper tree before which he knelt, and the God whom he was addressing. ~ Willa Cather

Rose is not the prettiest flower, neither water lily or petunia nor magnolia! An elegant soul is the prettiest flower on earth! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Whatever shall you wear?' Torin observed, propping his chin in his hand. 'Let's see, there's the black T-shirt with black jeans. Or perhaps, if you're going for elegance over function, you could wear the black T-shirt with black jeans. Ooh!' He sat up, widening his eyes. 'Do you know what would be particularly fetching? The black-'
'T-shirt with black jeans,' I finished for him. 'Hilarious. ~ Rachel Hawkins

He hesitated, all rational thoughts drowning in the seas of her azure eyes. ~ Poem Schway

Elegance is refusal. ~ Coco Chanel

I am not able to instruct you. I can only tell that I have chosen wrong. I have passed my time in study without experience; in the attainment of sciences which can, for the most part, be but remotely useful to mankind. I have purchased knowledge at the expense of all the common comforts of life: I have missed the endearing elegance of female friendship, and the happy commerce of domestic tenderness. ~ Samuel Johnson

Compassion is the ultimate beauty.
Compassion is the elegance of heart.
Compassion makes you the most attractive person,
more lovable than being rich or smart.
While you can work on your degree, then get the
job and make good money, there is no diploma for
compassion.
You have to learn it by yourself. ~ Tatsiana

Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure. ~ Edsger Dijkstra

Elegance; it lacks the intellect -
he is not a dancer who dances to the beat of love - on the other hand, the heart, can not solve mathematical problems. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

With another shock of excitement, Harry saw Sirius give James the thumbs-up.
Sirius was lounging in his chair at his ease, tilting it back on two legs. He was very good-looking, his dark hair fell into his eyes with a sort of casual elegance neither James's nor Harry's could ever have achieved, and a girl sitting behind him was eyeing him hopefully, though he didn't seem to have noticed. ~ J.K. Rowling

Natural elegance inspires the mind. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Almost every woman inherently wants to have the 'desirability advantage,' but few are willing to admit not to mention work on it. The following advice is strictly meant for sensual ladies: Don't be afraid to be your most gorgeous self or to look sexy. Yes, it will give you an unfair advantage, but what's really important is that it will teach you the art of living a sensual lifestyle, an art without which life (and love) would be utterly boring if not depressing. ~ Lebo Grand

It is spring time now! While the world looks for a new war to fight, you look for a cherry blossom to watch! Let the stupid seeks the violence; you seek the elegance! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

The ladies of Cranford always dressed with chaste elegance and propriety ... ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

Throw out and keep throwing out. Elegance means elimination. ~ Jean-Michel Frank

Simplicity provides the highest sophistication, the greatest elegance, after all. ~ L.M. Elliott

His mouth came to hers suddenly, hovering above those thirsting lips as he drilled her with the intensity of his mercury gaze.
"Neliss ... " he murmured, reverting to the elegance of their ancient language. "Neliss ent desita."
Beauty of the ages. ~ Jacquelyn Frank

The famous Florentine elegance, which attracts tourists to the shops on Via Tornabuoni and Via della Vigna Nuova, is characterized by austerity of line, simplicity, economy of effect. ~ Mary McCarthy

- 'Poise is perfect balance, an equanimity of body and mind, complete composure whatever the social scene. Elegant dress, immaculate grooming, and perfect deportment all contribute to the attainment of self-confidence.' - ~ Muriel Spark

Properly understood, style is not a seductive decoration added to a functional structure; it is of the essence of a work of art. The necessary elements of style are lucidity, elegance, and individuality; these three qualities combine to form a preservative which ensures the nearest approximation to permanence in the fugitive art of letters. ~ Evelyn Waugh

I want to be the one you turn to for guidance and comfort. I want to create things that become a source of stability for people, some sort of home. Write books that you read until the edges are torn and songs that you listen to in your headphones on a lonely night bus, taking you somewhere far far away.I want to be so sure of my own place in the universe that no one could ever doubt me. What I'm about or what I'm here to do. I want to be a safe aura in a sea of worries and uncertainty. I want to stand for clarity where only chaos seems to grow. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

In football as in watchmaking, talent and elegance mean nothing without rigour and precision. ~ Lionel Messi

Many a woman will pass for elegant in a ballroom, or even at a court drawing room, whose want of true breeding would become evident in a chosen company. ~ Julia Ward Howe

There's a simple elegance in the silent space between Leah and me. ~ Dave Cenker

Lady Middleton piqued herself upon the elegance and extravagance of her table, and all her domestic arrangements; she loved to surprise English visitors with displays of hospitality native to her homeland, such as flavouring her soups with monkey urine and not telling anyone she had done so until the bowl had been drained. ~ Ben H. Winters

I connect fashion to other peoples' elegance, but not my own. I don't think I've ever felt elegant. I've felt appropriate, but never elegant, and I wonder what that must be like. I like it when other people are elegant - I prefer it - but I can't do it myself. I honestly think it's some form of autistic disorder. ~ Douglas Coupland

In the right hands, a comic strip attains a beauty and elegance that, really, I would put against any other art. ~ Bill Watterson

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one's self? ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Her religion
perhaps, Alwyn thought, American Christianity as a whole
was a religion of ideal prose; all the beauty it had was the elegance of a perfect law, a Napoleonic code. It deified Jesus, but deified Him as a social leader and teacher martyred for His virtue, a compassionate attorney at the right hand of God the judge, and a fulfillment of the half-political prophecies of the Old Testament
whose jurisprudence of hygiene, family relations, patriotism, and commerce, its morality resembled. ~ Glenway Wescott

He undressed before her, dropping his shirt to reveal a tautly muscled torso and a chest covered with with black hair. His big-framed body was clearly built for power rather than elegance. Yet there was something innately graceful about the long lines of muscle and sinew, and the heavy breadth of his shoulders. He was a man who made a woman feel safe, and at the same time, deliciously overpowered. ~ Lisa Kleypas

The proud tower built up through the great age of European civilization was an edifice of grandeur and passion, of riches and beauty and dark cellars. Its inhabitants lived, as compared to a later time, with more self-reliance, more confidence, more hope; greater magnificence, extravagance and elegance; more careless ease, more gaiety, more pleasure in each other's company and conversation, more injustice and hypocrisy, more misery and want, more sentiment including false sentiment, less sufferance of mediocrity, more dignity in work, more delight in nature, more zest. The Old World had much that has since been lost, whatever may have been gained. Looking back on it from 1915, Emile Verhaeren, the Belgian Socialist poet, dedicated his pages, With emotion, to the man I used to be. ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

Opulence without elegance seems to be her motto. ~ T.E. Kinsey

Do you know what elegance is? It is not only what you're wearing. It is how you wear it. who you are inside. ~ Carolina Herrera

The French in particular confuse unadorned direct language with a lack of culture or intellectual elegance. ~ A.A. Gill

Elegance is not to be noticed, but to be remembered. ~ Giorgio Armani

Elegance lies not in the clothes we wear, but in the way we wear them. ~ Paulo Coelho

Hope you got your things together.'" I sang, stabbing a pillow with my spear. Feathers exploded into the air. "'Hope you are quite prepared to die!'" I spun in a dazzling whirl of lights, landed a killer back-kick on a phantom Shade, and simultaneously punched the magazine rack. "'Looks like we're in for nasty weather!'" I took a swan dive at a short, imaginary Shade, lunged up at a taller one -
- and froze.
Barrons stood inside the front door, dripping cool-world elegance.
I hadn't heard him come in over the music. He was leaning, shoulder against the wall, arms folded, watching me.
"'One eye is taken for an eye . . .'" I trailed off, deflating. I didn't need a mirror to know how stupid I looked. I regarded him sourly for a moment, then moved for the sound dock to turn it off. When I heard a choked sound behind me I spun, and shot him a hostile glare. He wore his usual expression of arrogance and boredom. I resumed my path for the sound dock, and heard it again. This time when I turned back, the corners of his mouth were twitching. I stared at him until they stopped.
I'd reached the sound dock, and just turned it off, when he exploded.
I whirled. "I didn't look that funny," I snapped.
His shoulders shook.
"Oh, come on! Stop it!"
He cleared his throat and stopped laughing. Then his gaze took a quick dart upward, fixed on my blazing MacHalo, and he lost it again. I don't know, maybe it was the brackets sticking out from the sides. ~ Karen Marie Moning

I like to think that I can introduce people to the idea of simplicity and elegance. ~ Giorgio Armani

Real elegance is everywhere, especially in the things that don't show. ~ Christian Dior

Perfume puts the finishing touch to elegance - a detail that subtly underscores the look, an invisible extra that completes a man and a woman's personality. Without it there is something missing. ~ Gianni Versace

When they turned, Pelletier and Espinoza saw an older woman in a white blouse and black skirt, a woman with a figure like Marlene Dietrich, as Pelletier would say much later, a woman who despite her years was still as strong willed as ever, a woman who didn't cling to the edge of the abyss but plunged into it with curiosity and elegance. A woman who plunged into the abyss sitting down. ~ Roberto Bolano

Seen under the microscope, Stegomyia is a creature of striking beauty. Its general color is dark gray, but the thorax is marked with a silvery-white lyre-shaped pattern; the abdomen is banded with silvery-white stripes and the six-jointed legs are striped alternately with black and pure white. Among mosquitoes Stegomyia is the height of elegance. ~ David McCullough

Elegance is not standing out, but being remembered. ~ Giorgio Armani

Poetry, fiction as novels or short stories - these are autonomous as created by their authors. They should stand on their own, like pieces of furniture that should be judged as to their usefulness, elegance. ~ F. Sionil Jose

Dear Francesca, tell me, is this a succesful party, in your view? Is this the best we can do? I know that you have always wanted to meet Kong; now that you have met him and he has said whatever he has said to you (I saw you smiling), can we go home? I mean you to your home, me to my home, all these others to their own homes, cells, cages? I am feeling a little ragged. What made us think that we could escape things like bankruptcy, alcoholism, being dissapointed, having children? Say 'No,' refuse me once and for all, let me try something else. Of course we did everything right, insofar as we were able to imagine what 'right' was. Is it really important to know that this movie is fine, and that one terrible, and to talk intelligently about the difference? Wonderful elegance! No good at all! ~ Donald Barthelme

Andres Segovia literally created the genre of classical guitar, which hadn't existed before around 1910. There was flamenco, which he borrowed from, but he actually arranged the works of Mozart and other classical composers for guitar, something that had never been done before ... Segovias' style is not slick or contrived, but it's still very clean and his timing is impeccable ... it's got a feeling of casual elegance, as if he's sitting around the house in Spain with a jug of wine, just playing from the heart. ~ Roger McGuinn

I am very seldom interested in applications. I am more interested in the elegance of a problem. Is it a good problem, an interesting problem? ~ Claude Shannon

When I think of it as happening to somebody else, it seems that the idea of me soaked to the skin, surrounded by countless driving streaks of silver, and moving through when I completely forget my material existence, and view myself from a purely objective standpoint, can I, as a figure in a painting, blend into the beautiful harmony of my natural surroundings. The moment, however, I feel annoyed because of the rain, or miserable because my legs are weary because of the rain, or miserable because my legs are weary with walking, then I have already ceased to be a character in a poem, or a figure in a painting, and I revert to the uncomprehending, insensitive man in the street I was before. I am then even blind to the elegance of the fleeting clouds; unable even to feel any bond of sympathy with a falling petal or the cry of a bird, much less appreciate the great beauty in the image of myself, completely alone, walking through the mountains in spring. ~ Soseki Natsume

She was temptation wrapped in casual elegance. ~ Christine Feehan

Eccentricity is not the synonym for elegance. ~ Guy LAROCHE

When Suzie introduced Helen, she told the audience that one of the best things about books is that they are an interactive art form: that while the author may describe in some detail how a character looks, it is the reader's imagination that completes the image, making it his or her own. "That's why we so often don't like movies made from books, right?" Suzie said. "We don't like someone else's interpretation of what we see so clearly." She talked, too, about how books educate and inspire, and how they soothe the soul-"like comfort food without the calories," she said. She talked about the tactile joys of reading, the feel of a page beneath one's fingers; the elegance of typeface on a page. She talked about how people complain that they don't have time to read, and reminded them that if they gave up half an hour of television a day in favor of reading, they could finish twenty-five books a year. "Books don't take time away from us," she said. "They give it back. In this age of abstraction, of multitasking, of speed for speed's sake, they reintroduce us to the elegance-and the relief!-of real, tick-tock time. ~ Elizabeth Berg

Exactness is first obtained, and afterwards elegance. But diction, merely vocal, is always in its childhood. As no man leaves his eloquence behind him, the new generations have all to learn. There may possibly be books without a polished language, but there can be no polished language without books. ~ Samuel Johnson

As we shall see, the tractable apostrophe has always done its proper jobs in our language with enthusiasm and elegance, but it has never been taken seriously enough; its talent for adaptability has been cruelly taken for granted; and now, in an age of supreme graphic frivolity, we pay the price. ~ Lynne Truss

Our hypotheses are initially rooted in theoretical consistency and elegance, but ... ultimatel y it is experiment not rigid belief that determines what is correct. ~ Lisa Randall

He was deception steeped in elegance, from his sharp smile to his unsettling eyes. ~ Roshani Chokshi

Fashion is nothing more than the temporary custom of rich and idle people who make it their principal business to study the external elegance of life. ~ Philip Gilbert Hamerton

One thing that makes the adventure of working in our field particularly rewarding, especially in attempting to improve the theory, is that ... a chief criterion for the selection of a correct hypothesis ... seems to be the criterion of beauty, simplicity, or elegance. ~ Murray Gell-Mann

Elegance is when the inside is as beautiful as the outside. ~ Coco Chanel

When you love a woman, what do you really love in her? It will be different with different people and it will be different at different times. If love really grows, this is the way: first you fall in love with the woman because her body is beautiful. That is the first available beauty - her face, her eyes, her proportion, her elegance, her dancing, pulsating energy. Her body is beautiful. That is the first approach. You fall in love.

Then after a few days you start going deeper into the woman. You start loving her heart. Now a far more beautiful revelation is coming to you. The body becomes secondary; the heart becomes primary. A new vision has arisen, a new peak. If you go on loving the woman, sooner or later you will find there are peaks beyond peaks, depths beyond depths. Then you start loving the soul of the woman. Then it is not only her heart - now that has become secondary. Now it is the very person, the very presence, the very radiance, the aliveness, that unknown phenomenon of her being - that she is. The body is very far away, the heart has also gone away - now the being is.

And then one day this particular woman's being becomes far away. Now you start loving womanhood in her, the femininity, the feminineness, that receptivity. Now she is not a particular woman at all, she simply reflects womanhood, a particular form of womanhood. Now it is no longer individual, it is becoming more and more universal. And one day that womanhood has also disappe ~ Osho

Elegance is a small price to pay for enlightenment, and I was glad to pay it. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Ah, the truth, what a thing it is! I sacrifice so much for it, with people: I forego, for truth's sake, discretion, loyalty, diplomacy, tact, polite manners, elegance, grace, poise, balance, good taste, conformity, image-role, fashionableness, polish, confidences, promises, ambition, consistency, identity, clarity, comprehensibleness, good will, hypocrisy, and lots of other things
amass sacrifice, at truth's altar. God! is truth worth it? I hope it is. It better be, in fact. ~ Marvin L. Cohen

When the mind loses its feeling for elegance, it grows corrupt and groveling, and seeks in the crowd what ought to be found at home. ~ Walter Savage Landor

There might be cheats or possible cheats amongst them, men who beat their wives, men with perverse instincts, greedy men, cowardly men, lying men; but the elegance of the room invested each one with a kind of aristocracy. ~ Ian Fleming

Do you like my working persona?" Saiman asked softly. "An aesthetically pleasing combination of intelligence and elegance, wouldn't you say?"
Aren't we pleased with ourselves. "Are you Chinese, Japanese, half-white? I can't tell, your features are neither here nor there."
"I'm inscrutable, mysterious and intellectual."
He forgot conceited. "Did you have any trouble getting that ego through the door?"
Saiman didn't even blink. "Not in the least. ~ Ilona Andrews

A herd of gods tripped over themselves running after her. ~ Poem Schway

Braininess is not attractive unless combined with some signs of elegance; class. ~ Alice Munro

Elegance is elimination. ~ Cristobal Balenciaga

Her leg, sculptured by the tight sheen of the stocking, its long line running straight, over an arched instep, to the tip of a foot in a high-heeled pump, had a feminine elegance that seemed out of place in the dusty train car ... ~ Ayn Rand

In order to create an image almost similar to that of a pencil case standing up and walking, I try to eliminate all excess by cutting. I have the feeling that this process (of "cutting off") is linked in some way to "elegance". Elegance and so-called "eliminating excess", or the beauty that remains after excess has beeen eliminated ... ~ Yohji Yamamoto

The zenith of elegance in any woman's wardrobe is the little black dress, the power of which suggests dash and refinement. ~ Andre Leon Talley

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

Every species embodies a solution to some environmental challenge, and some of these solutions are breathtaking in their elegance. ~ Linda Bender

She turned towards me immediately. The easy elegance of every movement of her limbs and body as soon as she began to advance from the far end of the room, set me in a flutter of expectation to see her face clearly. She left the window - and I said to myself, The lady is dark. She moved forward a few steps - and I said to myself, The lady is young. She approached nearer - and I said to myself (with a sense of surprise which words fail me to express), The lady is ugly! Never ~ Wilkie Collins

Simplicity," I said, "is true elegance. A woman is closest to being naked when she is well dressed. Her clothing should be seen only after she herself is. ~ C.W. Gortner

We must never confuse elegance with snobbery ~ Yves Saint-Laurent

He saw a square room furnished as a library. The entire section of the walls which he could spy was covered from floor to ceiling with books. There were volumes of every size, every shape, every colour. There were long, narrow books that held themselves like grenadiers at stiff attention. There were short, fat books that stood solidly like aldermen who were going to make speeches and were ashamed but not frightened. There were mediocre books bearing themselves with the carelessness of folk who are never looked at and have consequently no shyness. There were solemn books that seemed to be feeling for their spectacles; and there were tattered, important books that had got dirty because they took snuff, and were tattered because they had been crossed in love and had never married afterwards. There were prim, ancient tomes that were certainly ashamed of their heroines and utterly unable to obtain a divorce from the hussies; and there were lean, rakish volumes that leaned carelessly, or perhaps it was with studied elegance, against their neighbours, murmuring in affected tones, "All heroines are charming to us. ~ James Stephens

Elegance has nothing to do with fashion. ~ Karl Lagerfeld

Wear your treasure and you will be Treasured ~ Treasure Stitches

Diligence leads to elegance ~ Rajesh Walecha

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

To enjoy life at its best, be an epitome of style and elegance. ~ Debasish Mridha

Elegance in objects is everybody's right, and it shouldn't cost more than ugliness. ~ Paola Antonelli

[ The Finest Hours] reminded me a lot of a film I did called Unstoppable in that you have a driving thriller aspect of the film and it's not all that complicated of a story and there's a simple elegance to it. I liked that. It is also driven by a really strong romance and ordinary men doing extraordinary things. I love that. ~ Chris Pine

Like Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, I saw the effortless grace and elegance of the women around me and realized that "there was some skill involved in being a girl," and I knew I didn't just want to grow up and be a woman. I wanted to grow up and be a lady. ~ Sophie Hudson