“Art is man's expression of his joy in labour.”
William Morris
CraftsmanshipJoy
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.
“The reward of labour is life.”
William Morris
WorkPurpose
“I do not want art for a few, any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few.”
William Morris
AccessibilityDesign For All
“Beauty, which is what is meant by art, is no mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life.”
William Morris
BeautyNecessity
“I define Beauty as the promise of Function; Action as the presence of Function; Character as the record of Function.”
Horatio Greenough
FunctionCharacter
“The general form is first to be cared for; this should be subdivided and ornamented by general lines.”
Owen Jones
ProcessForm
“Colour is used to assist in the development of form, and to distinguish objects or parts of objects one from another.”
Owen Jones
ColourClarity
“Nothing is quite beautiful alone: nothing but is beautiful in the whole.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
HarmonySystems
“Beauty is its own excuse for being.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
BeautyPurpose
“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
IdeasPotential
“Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
BeautyVirtue
“I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, and threw them out the window in disgust.”
Henry David Thoreau
MinimalismFunny
“Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances.”
Henry David Thoreau
MinimalismSimplicity
“No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.”
Oscar Wilde
ContextPerspective
“It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But it is better to be good than to be ugly.”
Oscar Wilde
BeautyWitty
“Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.”
Leonardo da Vinci
CraftsmanshipPassion
“Nature never breaks her own laws.”
Leonardo da Vinci
NaturePrinciples
“Genius is eternal patience.”
Michelangelo
PatienceMastery
“For in truth art is embedded in nature; he who can extract it, has it.”
Albrecht Dürer
NatureInspiration
“The highest problem of any art is to cause by appearance the illusion of a higher reality.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
ArtImagination
“Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
ComplexitySimplicity
“Beauty is the symbol of morality.”
Immanuel Kant
BeautyEthics
“I mean straight lines and circles, and the plane or solid figures which are formed out of them by turning-lathes and rulers and measurers of angles; for these are not only relatively beautiful, like other things, but they are eternally and absolutely beautiful.”
Plato
GeometryTimeless Design
“A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end.”
Aristotle
StructureStorytelling
“The language of truth is simple.”
Seneca
SimplicityHonesty