“What beauty is, I know not, though it adheres to many things.”
Albrecht Dürer
BeautyMystery
Design Quotes
200 FAMOUS QUOTES · DESIGN
Design Quotes
Read 200 of the best design quotes about simplicity, beauty, function and creativity, from William Morris, Leonardo, Emerson, Confucius and more.
“Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.”
Michelangelo
DetailsPerfection
“Colours are the deeds of light.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
ColourLight
“In limitation the master first reveals himself.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
ConstraintsMastery
“Have nothing in your house that has not given pleasure to the workman when he made it.”
Oscar Wilde
CraftsmanshipJoy
“All beautiful things belong to the same age.”
Oscar Wilde
Timeless DesignBeauty
“Simplicity and repose are qualities that measure the true value of any work of art.”
Frank Lloyd Wright
SimplicityCalm
“This is an art which does mend nature, change it rather, but the art itself is nature.”
William Shakespeare
NatureArt
“Prose is words in their best order; poetry is the best words in the best order.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
TypographyOrder
“All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.”
Walter Pater
HarmonyArt
“I work with my mind and not with my eye.”
Chuang Tzu
MasteryIntuition
“Ornament is as substance; substance is as ornament.”
Confucius
FormSubstance
“The business of laying on the colours follows the preparation of the plain ground.”
Confucius
ProcessFoundations
“The five colours make man's eyes blind.”
Lao Tzu
MinimalismOverload
“There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”
Francis Bacon
UniquenessProportion
“God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest of human pleasures.”
Francis Bacon
Garden DesignNature
“In all, let Nature never be forgot. Consult the genius of the place in all.”
Alexander Pope
ContextNature
“Let your work be simple and unified.”
Horace
SimplicityUnity
“Composition is the putting together of lines, masses and colours to make a harmony.”
Arthur Wesley Dow
CompositionHarmony
“Decoration is the beautifying of that which is already useful.”
Christopher Dresser
DecorationFunction
“See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee.”
The Bible (Hebrews 8:5)
BlueprintsPlanning
“To work all manner of work, of the engraver, and of the cunning workman, and of the embroiderer.”
The Bible (Exodus 35:35)
CraftsmanshipSkill
“He hath made every thing beautiful in his time.”
The Bible (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
BeautyTiming
“Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer.”
The Bible (Proverbs 25:4)
RefinementEditing
“Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked?”
The Bible (Ecclesiastes 7:13)
NatureAcceptance