Standard

Famous quotes containing the word standard:

    An indirect quotation we can usually expect to rate only as better or worse, more or less faithful, and we cannot even hope for a strict standard of more and less; what is involved is evaluation, relative to special purposes, of an essentially dramatic act.
    Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)

    There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature, such as it is, weak or strong, and the thing which pleases us. Whatever is formed according to this standard pleases us, be it house, song, discourse, verse, prose, woman, birds, rivers, trees, room, dress, and so on. Whatever is not made according to this standard displeases those who have good taste.
    Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)

    When Freedom, from her mountain height,
    Unfurled her standard to the air,
    She tore the azure robe of night,
    And set the stars of glory there;
    Joseph Rodman Drake (1795–1820)