#ornamentation

In a very simple sense I want everything that's in a work to be there for the reason that it's needed. It's not an ornamentation. It's not there because I thought it looked nice but because it has to be there. ↗

— Paul Cullen

#everything #i #looked #needed #nice

Down below the broad, roaring waves of the sea break against the deep foundation of the rock. But high above the mountain, the sea, and the peaks of rock the eternal ornamentation blooms silently from the dark depths of the universe. ↗

— Rudolf Otto

#against #below #blooms #break #broad

Now take a human body. Why wouldn't you like to see a human body with a curling tail with a crest of ostrich feathers at the end? And with ears shaped like acanthus leaves? It would be ornamental, you know, instead of the stark, bare ugliness we have now. Well, why don't you like the idea? Because it would be useless and pointless. Because the beauty of the human body is that is hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#form #function #human-body #humans #ornamentation

If one has a good disposition, what other virtue is needed? If a man has fame, what is the value of other ornamentation? ↗

— Chanakya

#fame #good #man #needed #ornamentation