Quotes
Quotes about Style
It was many and many a year ago, In a District styled E.C., That a monster dwelt whom I cam to know By the name of Cannibal Flea, And the brute was possessed with no other thought Than to live--and to live on me.
Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity.
Ignorance is never out of style. It was in fashion yesterday, it is the rage today and it will set the pace tomorrow.
Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.
The striking point about our model family is not simply the compete-compete, consume-consume style of life it urges us to follow. The striking point, in the face of all the propaganda, is how few Americans actually live this way.
The greatest thing in style is to have a command of metaphor.
In any closet, you can find it, if it is too small, or out of style, or there is just one of it where there should be two. I am not sure what this is, but an `F' would only dignify it.
A good style must have an air of novelty, at the same time concealing its art.
Why should not grave Philosophy be styled. Herself, a dreamer of a kindred stock, A dreamer, yet more spiritless and dull?
The Plagiarism of orators is the art, or an ingenious and easy mode, which some adroitly employ to change, or disguise, all sorts of speeches or their own composition, or that of other authors, for their pleasure, or their utility; in such a manner that it becomes impossible even for the author himself to recognize his own work, his own genius, and his own style, so skillfully shall the whole be disguised. - Isaac D'Israeli,
Every age has its pleasures, its style of wit, and its own ways.
The mind, relaxing into needful sport, Should turn to writers of an abler sort, Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style, Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile.
If you are at Rome live in the Roman style; if you are elsewhere live as they live elsewhere. [Lat., Si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more; Si fueris alibi, vivito sicut ibi.]
Follow a shadow, it still flies you, Seem to fly, it will pursue: So court a mistress, she denies you; Let her alone, she will court you. Say are not women truly, then, Styled but the shadows of us men?
Only great minds can afford a simple style.
A chaste and lucid style is indicative of the same personal traits in the author.
The style is the man. [Fr., Le style c'est l'homme.]
Style is the dress of thoughts. - Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield,
And, after all, it is style alone by which posterity will judge of a great work, for an author can have nothing truly his own but his style.
Style! style! why, all writers will tell you that it is the very thing which can least of all be changed. A man's style is nearly as much a part of him as his physiognomy, his figure, the throbbing of this pulse,--in short, as any part of his being is at least subjected to the action of the will.
For style beyond the genius never dares. [Fr., Che stilo oltra l'ingegno non si stende.]
Such labour'd nothings, in so strange a style. Amaze th' learn'd, and make the learned smile.
When Croft's "Life of Dr. Young" was spoken of as a good imitation of Dr. Johnson's style, "No, no," said he, "it is not a good imitation of Johnson; it has all his pomp without his force; it has all the nodosities of the oak, without its strength; it has all the contortions of the sibyl, without the inspiration."
All styles are good except the tiresome kind. [Fr., Tous les genres sont bons, hors le genre ennuyeux.]
The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses, which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say; but the flowery style ought to be banished from a pleading, a sermon, or a didactic work. - Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire),
