"But this earthquake fancy terrified the Greeks, and their terror has terrified all mankind out of their natural love of size, vitality, variety, energy, ugliness. Nature intended every human face, so long as it was forcible, individual, and expressive, to be regarded as distinct from all others, as a poplar is distinct from an oak, and an apple-tree from a willow. But what the Dutch gardeners did for trees the Greeks did for the human form; they lopped away its living and sprawling features to give it a certain academic shape; they hacked off noses and pared down chins with a ghastly horticultural calm. And they have really succeeded so far as to make us call some of the most powerful and endearing faces ugly, and some of the most silly and repulsive faces beautiful."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Defendant
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
The Defendant
68 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by The Defendant →
Related Quotes
"At first sight it would seem that the pessimist encourages improvement. But in reality it is a singular truth that th…"
"In certain endless uplands, uplands like great flats gone dizzy, slopes that seem to contradict the idea that there i…"
"Religion has had to provide that longest and strangest telescope—the telescope through which we could see the star up…"
"The pessimist is commonly spoken of as the man in revolt. He is not. Firstly, because it requires some cheerfulness t…"
"One of the strangest examples of the degree to which ordinary life is undervalued is the example of popular literatur…"
"But people must have conversation, they must have houses, and they must have stories. The simple need for some kind o…"
"Literature and fiction are two entirely different things. Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity. A work of a…"
"But this is what we have done with this lumberland of foolish writing: we have probed, as if it were some monstrous n…"
"Thus in the old aristocratic days there existed this vast pictorial symbolism of all the colours and degrees of arist…"
"If, therefore, I am certain that most sensible people have forgotten the existence of this book—I do not speak in mod…"