Massimo Quotes & Sayings

It is because one can build a compelling set of arguments - informed by science and thoroughly compatible with it - that to believe in anything despite the complete lack of evidence is, in fact, irrational. — Massimo Pigliucci

My photography comes from absolute matter-of-fact situations but also from a deep curiosity that I possess for people, for what they do and how they think. — Massimo Vitali

Like many Eastern European gangsters, he had been an official in the state security apparatus until the Communist regime collapsed. — Massimo Carlotto

Never write anything that does not move you or give you pleasure. Emotion is then transferred from the writer to the reader. — Massimo Marino

[T]he nature of science is not that of a steady, linear progression toward the Truth, but rather a tortuous road, often characterized by dead ends and U-turns, and yet ultimately inching toward a better, if tentative, understanding of the natural world. — Massimo Pigliucci

Photography is like a river with a thousand streams that never converge. — Massimo Vitali

Remember, my boy, I never fight for the pleasure of wielding weapons. War, for me, is simply politics by other means. — Valerio Massimo Manfredi

The computer needs ... even by accident, offers incredible beautiful things that are very seductive. And if you forget about, or if you don't have an idea to begin with, it is very easy to be seduced and that is not a good use of the computer. — Massimo Vignelli

Unfortunately, there are designers and marketing people who intentionally look down on the consumer with the notion that vulgarity has a definite appeal to the masses, and therefore they supply the market with a continuos flow of crude and vulgar design. I consider this action criminal since it is producing visual pollution that is degrading our environment just like all other types of pollution. — Massimo Vignelli

Intellectual elegance [is] a mind that is continually refining itself with education and knowledge. Intellectual elegance is the opposite of intellectual vulgarity. — Massimo Vignelli

Following the Post Modernist route, we may indeed never arrive at meaning, but not because meaning is not there ... only because we are lost in endless linguistic games that are entirely beside the point. — Massimo Pigliucci

Designers take care of everything around us. Everything that is around us, this table, this chair, this lamp, this pen has been designed. All of these things, everything has been designed by somebody. — Massimo Vignelli

You cannot play the piano by telling a pianist what to do, go a little more to the left or to the right. And the same is for the computer, really. You have to play yourself to get the most out of it. — Massimo Vignelli

The web is an opportunity for those who understand that the web is a threat. — Massimo Moruzzi

MASSIMO: "After all I have done, to have you love me is nothing less than a miracle."
BELINDA: He was wrong. Loving him was the easiest thing in the world. That they'd found each other after their respective histories was the miracle. — Billy London

Nothing can stop a one-step-at-a-time journey. Nothing! — Massimo Marino

Design is not art. Design is utilitarian, art is not. — Massimo Vignelli

I don't think that type should be expressive at all. I can write the word 'dog' with any typeface and it doesn't have to look like a dog. But there are people that [think that] when they write 'dog' it should bark. — Massimo Vignelli

Middle management is a disease. — Massimo Vignelli

Italy has been made; now it remains to make Italians — Massimo D'Azeglio

If a theory purports to explain everything, then it is likely not explaining much at all. — Massimo Pigliucci

It made our presence in the world meaningful; we still served a purpose. — Massimo Marino

The Lawyer went down to the dressing room before a match, only to catch Platini puffing on a cigarette. 'That worries me,' Agnelli said to Platini. Instantly, a riposte came back. 'You only need to worry if he starts smoking,' said Platini, pointing at Massimo Bonini, the tireless midfield ball-winner in that Juventus team. — John Foot

Freedom is for the curious ones. Free is the one not influenced by taboos. Free is the one who reasons and evolves continuously, and refuses to accept anything without thinking. — Massimo Marino

[T]he downside of skepticism: it can easily turn into an arrogant position of a priori rejection of any new phenomenon or idea, a position that is as lacking in critical thinking as the one of the true believer, and that simply does not help either science or the public at large. — Massimo Pigliucci

British astronomer royal Richard Woolley, who in 1956 said, "All this talk about space travel is utter bilge, really."10 Yuri Gagarin was the first human to orbit the earth just five years later. — Massimo Pigliucci

Scale is a mental - you can say that a lounger has scale, a building has scale, or an object has scale, or a page, or whatever if it's just right. A scale is a relationship to the object and the space surrounding it. And that dialogue could be music, or it could be just noise. And that is why it is so important, the sense of scale. — Massimo Vignelli

If you do it right, it will last forever. — Massimo Vignelli

Time oozed away, flowing like lava erupting lazily from a vent, slowly and impossible to stop, covering everything into oblivion under its dark layer of things that were and will never be again. — Massimo Marino

The pencil you leave it there, and it's dead. It doesn't do anything and it doesn't move by itself. It doesn't offer anything; it's totally submissive to you. — Massimo Vignelli

According to news reports, members of the sect believed in an assortment of pseudoreligious and paranormal ideas, including resurrection (obviously), astrology, and psychic powers. They were also avid watchers of paranormal shows on TV. This of course does not imply that watching The X-Files leads to suicide, just like millions of people playing Grand Theft Auto video games are not automatically turned into criminals on a rampage. — Massimo Pigliucci

When the Universe is taken into account, nothing is impossible. — Massimo Marino

A designer without a sense of history is worth nothing — Massimo Vignelli

You do design because you feel it inside; you have a moral issue to spread quality in our environment. — Massimo Vignelli

It is better to starve than get a bad client. — Massimo Vignelli

For example, a set of twenty-five studies involving five hundred astrologers examined the average degree of agreement between astrological predictions. In social science, such as in psychology, tests that have less than o.8 (i.e., 8o percent) agreement level are considered unreliable. Astrology's reliability is an embarrassingly low o. I, with a variability around the mean of o.o6 standard deviations. This means that there is, on average, no agreement at all among the predictions made by different astrologers. — Massimo Pigliucci

In the new computer age, the proliferation of typefaces and type manipulations represents a new level of visual pollution threatening our culture. Out of thousands of typefaces, all we need are a few basic ones, and trash the rest. — Massimo Vignelli

History sometimes reproduces, at a distance of many years, the same combinations of circumstances that generate great achievements. But nothing ever repeats itself in exactly the same way. — Valerio Massimo Manfredi

There are people that thinks that type should be expressive. They have a different point of view from mine. — Massimo Vignelli

What did the Romans say? "De gustibus non est disputandum": It is worthless to discuss personal taste. It is called 'personal' for a reason. — Massimo Marino

Hey, Salvo," asked Max when they had almost fallen asleep. "May I write your story?"
"Don't you dare, amico" was Salvatore's reply. "Kindly come up with your own storia, young Massimo. If you take mine, I'll have none left of my own — Nina George

The idea turned Facebook into the digital version of a message in a bottle. — Massimo Marino

They passed the Gates of Thermopylae the following day and Alexander stopped to visit the tombs of the Spartan soldiers who had fallen one hundred and forty years previously during their battle with the Persian invaders. He read the simple inscription in Laconian dialect that commemorated their ultimate sacrifice and he stood in silence listening to the wind blowing in from the sea.
How ephemeral is the destiny of man!' he exclaimed. 'All that is left of the thunder of a momentous clash which shook the whole world and an act of heroism worthy of Homer's verses are these few lines. All is quiet now. — Valerio Massimo Manfredi

Don't be governed by the grid, govern the grid. A grid is like a lion cage - if the trainer stays too long it gets eaten up. You have to know when to leave the cage - you have to know when to leave the grid. — Massimo Vignelli

The only way to stay in fashion is never be in. If you are never in fashion, you are never out of fashion. — Massimo Vignelli

Success in life is about obsession — Massimo Bottura

It is revolutionary in the history of human thinking to imagine that the world is not built with solid bricks, but rather with vibration, energy. — Massimo Citro

If all people doing desktop publishing were doctors we would all be dead! — Massimo Vignelli

There is no design without discipline. There is no discipline without intelligence. — Massimo Vignelli

As a photographer you have to do things you don't want to. — Massimo Vitali

I will never give up. Remind yourself of this, we can survive and we will survive. — Massimo Marino

Styles come and go. Good design is a language, not a style. — Massimo Vignelli

Science progresses. Ideology tends to linger unchanged, and often unquestioned. — Massimo Pigliucci

Life must be lived at the right time. Death is not scary when one dies after having lived fully. One must choose to live though and face all adversities. — Massimo Marino

Men's clothing hasn't changed in 200 years, maybe a lapel gets a little wider or a tie gets narrower from time to time. But it's usually always the same. There is stupidity in men's fashion. But women know who they are. They can change. Clothing is seductive for women. They get different personas by buying new clothes. But men don't. — Massimo Vignelli

Expiating a sin does not mean doing something opposite to wallow in guilt, but to use that same guilt to achieve full knowledge of the sin. The fault lies more not in having committed certain acts, rather in having carried them out without reaching their intimate knowledge. And this leads to committing a wrong again and again. — Massimo Marino

A grid is like underwear, you wear it but it's not to be exposed. — Massimo Vignelli

I see graphic design as the organization of information that is semantically correct, syntactically consistent and pragmatically understandable. — Massimo Vignelli

The life of a designer is a life of fight: fight against the ugliness. — Massimo Vignelli

Most of the manufacturers they tend to design things to sell they are more interested in the money side than anything else. — Massimo Vignelli

Any color works if you push it to the extreme. — Massimo Vignelli

I like it to be visually powerful, intellectually elegant, and above all, timeless. — Massimo Vignelli

Richard Dawkins lamented,9 we think that our kids need to have "fun, fun, fun" rather than, say, experience wonder or interest (they are not the same thing) when going to school or a museum. — Massimo Pigliucci

Bad thoughts can be dangerous if left to simmer and weaken the heart slowly and invisibly. Like termites that destroy the beams of a house, secretly, in the dark until it's too late and everything collapses. — Massimo Marino

I'm not a designer, I'm a sifter. I can sift everything, all the time. My sift level lines keep shaking all the time for everything that is around. — Massimo Vignelli

If you can design one thing, you can design everything. — Massimo Vignelli

As astronomer Carl Sagan once aptly put it, you do not want to keep your mind so open that your brain is likely to fall out. — Massimo Pigliucci

I am Massimo Bottura. I close my eyes and I want to understand where I am, cooking is about emotion, it's about culture, it's about love, it's about memory. — Massimo Bottura

The repercussion of ugliness is endless. — Massimo Vignelli

You can say, "I love you," in Helvetica. And you can say it with Helvetica Extra Light if you want to be really fancy. Or you can say it with the Extra Bold if it's really intensive and passionate, you know, and it might work. — Massimo Vignelli

There are no simple answers to complex problems. — Valerio Massimo Manfredi

We're not choosing the art, the art is choosing us. The pieces are choosing the walls where they hang. — Massimo Bottura

By what psychoanalyst friends tell me, in the field of the emotional subconscious, the emotional resistances to be overcome are no longer the ones most people felt in Freud's [..] day. The moralizing respectability and the fear of sex evidenced in Freud's day no longer exist. I am told that today's resistances come in the form of summary, seemingly pitiless and unrelenting "wild" self-analyses offered up by those who claim to have understood "everything" about themselves. — Massimo Piattelli Palmarini

Good design is a matter of discipline. It starts by looking at the problem and collecting all the available information about it. If you understand the problem, you have the solution. It's really more about logic than imagination. — Massimo Vignelli

BELINDA:Your children are a pain in the neck...
MASSIMO: They are mine when they misbehave -
BELINDA: Which is always.
MASSIMO: And yours when they behave like angels.
BELINDA: I'll be old by the time that happens. — Billy London

A poet, Hephaestion, sings not to narrate human events as they occur, but to make sure that we have the opportunity of living the emotions and the passions of our heroes even at a distance of centuries. — Valerio Massimo Manfredi

The computer is really like a pencil, you know. It used to be. The pencil can do anything you want to, but you have to do it, and the same is with the computer. — Massimo Vignelli

The first thing you need to make clear to a client is that you aren't there to answer his wants but to answer his needs. — Massimo Vignelli

What I'm trying to do is save your ass, gorgeous. — Massimo Carlotto

I started very early. I started to be interested in design when I was 14 years old, basically, and before I was just like anybody else, any other kid. I was playing with everything. I loved to do stage sets by cutting a piece of board and making a cut in three sides, flipping it down, making the stage. — Massimo Vignelli

If you do the best thing everyday of your life, but nothing shakes you nor shakes the table for you and others, it is stale and its not worth it. — Massimo Vignelli

there's nothing wrong with ads. It's how newspapers and radio stations and Tv channels pay the bills and turn a profit. But please stop the bullshit about the "conversations". — Massimo Moruzzi

MASSIMO: I will not let you give me up out of some misguided duty to God....You and I do not need to be alone to show devotion to God. Misery does not show true faith. — Billy London

To a hammer, every problem is a nail," we said on the team but we called him 'the screwdriver'. We were confronted with stubborn nails and we needed a sledgehammer. — Massimo Marino

You can reach timelessness if you look for the essence of things and not the appearance. The appearance is transitory - the appearance is fashion, the appearance is trendiness - but the essence is timeless. — Massimo Vignelli

Freedom is that which comes from knowledge, the freedom that comes from curiosity, the freedom that comes from the times when the first man did not refuse to look into a telescope and discovered other planets, the freedom that comes from those who tried relentlessly when all others said it was impossible. It is in this freedom that deviance has its roots. — Massimo Marino

Right now he was having a hell of a time keeping the bear under control. He wanted to roar and tear Massimo limb from limb. He wanted to toss his lifeless body away from Cassie. "Stop the growling, Talen," Gerri snapped. "You scared her into fainting. There's something you don't see every day. — Milly Taiden

Scale is extremely important. Scale is not dimensions. Dimensions are physical and scales are mental. — Massimo Vignelli

In design, be logical, search for truth, be clear. — Massimo Vignelli

Greed is really the religion of vulgarity. — Massimo Vignelli

I started to begin to be interested in architecture and design when I was 14 years old, which was pretty early in life. And then I would start to look at architectural magazines and I eventually went to the school of architecture too, but one of the things I learned very early is that an architect should be able to design anything from a spoon to the city. — Massimo Vignelli

Good design is ubiquitous and forever. — Massimo Vignelli

If you paint a building shocking pink, that has no scale, it is just a huge mistake, but it's not in the scale of the city to have things like that. You know. So, not only because it's not appropriate, not only because it's offensive to the environment, I mean but among them also because that quantity of that color in the urban scale, is out of scale. — Massimo Vignelli

It's the space you put between the notes that make the music. — Massimo Vignelli

So what is design all about? It [exists to] decrease the amount of vulgarity in the world ... to make the world a better place to be. It doesn't have to be one style. We're not talking about style, we're talking about quality. Style is tangible, quality is intangible. I am talking about giving to everything that surrounds us a level of quality. — Massimo Vignelli

philip closed his eyes and stood upright and immobile in the middle of the silet room. In that moment the roar of battle, the creaking wood of the siege engines, the furious galloping of the horses all faded away; he simply stood stock still and listened to his son's breathing. — Valerio Massimo Manfredi

It's not important to develop your own style but your own approach. — Massimo Vignelli

The scale relates to everything. The thickness of a pipe, the thickness of a leg of the furniture. Even color could have a scale. — Massimo Vignelli

I have to go home, Masi.
You are my home, bella. I am lost without you. He couldn't speak. There were no words to recoil the loss consuming him. Massimo brought his hands up to her face. Kissing her one last time. He had to for his sanity. And he did with great passion, knowing he'd hurt her face when she kissed him back. But she did. He heard the cry in her throat as their tongues danced. Warm tears touched his palms as they continued to kiss. His fingertips were wet with sadness. He kept on kissing her. Unable to stop, he needed ten more seconds. Ti amo, I love you. Please don't leave. I've waited my whole life for you. When he pulled his face back, she cried, and he realized he did also. — Avery Aster

CEI in 1992 "advised" the Food and Drug Administration to approve recombinant bovine somatotropin, which is a bioengineered growth hormone. Now surely such recommendation would be accompanied by the further suggestion of labeling the resulting products so that consumer choice- that ultimate driver of market forces-could be openly exercised? Think again: the CEI argued that mandatory labeling of dairy products is "inappropriate" because it violates the First Amendment (which includes the right to free speech-of the cows?). — Massimo Pigliucci