figure quotes

For an actress to be a success she must have the face of Venus, the brains of Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, thememoryof Macaulay, thefigure of Juno, and thehide of a rhinoceros.

- Ethel Barrymore
Quoted in George  Jean Nathan The Theatre in the Fifties (1953).

Man is a singular creature. He has a set of gifts which makehimuniqueamong theanimals, sothat unlikethem he is not a figure in the landscapehe is the shaper of the landscape.

-Jacob Bronowski
  In The Listener.

At fifty you havethe choice of keeping your face or your figure and it's much better to keep your face.

- Dame (Mary) Barbara Hamilton Cartland
  In the Daily Mail,10  Jul.

The Common Law of England has been laboriously built about a mythical figurethe figure of 'The Reasonable Man'.

- SirA(lan) P(atrick) Herbert
  Uncommon Law,'The Reasonable Man'.

The landlady of a boarding-house is a parallelogramthat is, an oblong angular figure, which cannot be described, but which is equal to anything.

- Stephen Butler Leacock
  Literary Lapses,'Boarding-House Geometry'.

It is portentous, and a thing of state That here at midnight, in our little town A mourning figure walks, and will not rest, Near the old courthouse pacing up and down.

- (Nicholas) Vachel Lindsay
  The Congo and Other Poems,'Abraham Lincoln Walks  At Midnight'.

In the foreground is that strange figure which is as familiar to us as the figures of those among whom we havebeenbrought up, thegigantic body, thehugemassy face, seamed with the scars of disease, the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the grey wig with the scorched foretop, the dirty hands, the nails bitten and pared to the quick.

-1st Baron
  Of Dr Samuel Johnson.'Croker's new edition of  The Life of Samuel Johnson', in the Edinburgh Review, Sep.

I can't remember a single masculine figure created bya woman who is not, at bottom, a booby.

- H(enry) L(ouis) Mencken
  In Defence of Women, ch.1, pt.1.

Stalin†that great lover of peace, a man of giant stature who moulded, as few other men have done, the destinies of his age† The occasion is not merely the passing away of a great figure but perhaps the ending of an historic era.

-Jawaharlal Nehru
   Tribute, Indian Parliament, 9 Mar.

   One does not walk around a statue any more than one walks around a painting, because one does not walk around a figure to receive an impression from it.Nothing is material in space.

- Medardo Rosso
Quoted in Edmond Claris De l'impressionisme en sculpture, 'Medardo Rosso' (1902).

You can't figure him out like a fact, because to Reagan themainfact was avision† He came fromtheheartland of the country, where people could be down-to-earth yet feel that the sky is the limitnot ashamed of, or cynical about, the American dream.

- George P(ratt) Shultz
  Of Ronald Reagan.Turmoil andTriumph.

Will she pass in a crowd? Will she make a figure in a country church?

-Jonathan Swift
Journal to Stella, 9 Feb.