A Quote by Mary Shelley

Elegance is inferior to virtue.

Mary Shelley

Quote Topics

Elegance Inferior Virtue

Quote Author

Mary Shelley
English - Novelist
August 30, 1797 - February 1, 1851

The elegance of the Italian South is a very strong elegance and it is one that I bring. It is a sexy elegance - or at least, let's say less chaste.

Riccardo Tisci

It is important to notice that these badly functioning designs were praised for 'elegance.' But elegance as theoretical scientists apply it is quite different. The elegance of a mathematical formula is that it explains a phenomenon beautifully, with no parts left over. In design, elegance is more readily perceived as a property of product than of process. If we had more elegant theories, we might look to design for more than elegance.

Ralph Caplan

So we must lay it down that the association which is a state exists not for the purpose of living together but for the sake of noble actions. Those who contribute most to this kind of association are for that very reason entitled to a larger share in the state than those who, though they may be equal or even superior in free birth and in family, are inferior in the virtue that belongs to a citizen. Similarly they are entitled to a larger share than those who are superior in riches but inferior in virtue.

Aristotle

In the Age of Perfect Virtue, men lived among the animals and birds as members of one large family. There were no distinctions between superior and inferior to separate one man or species from another. All retained their natural Virtue and lived in a state of pure simplicity.

Benjamin Hoff

Taste and elegance, though they are reckoned only among the smaller and secondary morals, yet are of no mean importance in the regulations of life. A moral taste is not of force to turn vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue with something like the blandishments of pleasure, and it infinitely abates the evils of vice.

Edmund Burke

The only minority in America that's asking for integration is the so-called Negro, primarily because he is inferior, not inherently inferior, but he's economically, socially, politically inferior.

Malcolm X

Elegance of language may not be in the power of all of us; but simplicity and straight forwardness are. Write much as you would speak; speak as you think. If with your inferior, speak no coarser than usual; if with your superiors, no finer.

William P. Alford

I think my hight had the most significant single effect on my existence, aside from my brain. In fact, it's part of an inferior-superior syndrome. I think I have an inferior brain and an inferior stature, if you really want to get brutal about it.

Paul Simon

The 50s are the age of elegance. That's kind of my intention when I get dressed: casual elegance.

Laurence Fishburne

Elegance is always in style for men. There are all different kinds of elegance. It can be silk, it can be a T-shirt.

Donatella Versace

Elegance is innate. It has nothing to do with being well dressed. Elegance is refusal.

Diana Vreeland

It seems to me that invisibility is the required provision of elegance. Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.

Jean Cocteau

Elegance for one society is not elegance for another. It's in the eyes of the beholder.

Louise Wilson

Elegance must be the right combination of distinction, naturalness, care and simplicity. Outside this, believe me, there is no elegance. Only pretension.

Christian Dior

Why has elegance found so little following? That is the reality of it. Elegance has the disadvantage, if that's what it is, that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it.