Quotes from Color: A Natural History of the Palette

Victoria Finlay ·  464 pages

Rating: (55K votes)


“Years later the Romantic poet John Keats would complain that on that fateful day Newton had “destroyed all the poetry of the rainbow by reducing it to prismatic colors.” But color—like sound and scent—is just an invention of the human mind responding to waves and particles that are moving in particular patterns through the universe—and poets should not thank nature but themselves for the beauty and the rainbows they see around them.”
― Victoria Finlay, quote from Color: A Natural History of the Palette


“What they signified was precious, but what they were was not.”
― Victoria Finlay, quote from Color: A Natural History of the Palette


“Art history is so often about looking at the people who made the art; but I realized at that moment there were also stories to be told about the people who made the things that made the art. My”
― Victoria Finlay, quote from Color: A Natural History of the Palette


“White paint can be made of many things. It can come from chalk or zinc, barium or rice, or from little fossilized sea creatures in limestone graves. The Dutch artist Jan Vermeer even made some of his luminescent whites with a recipe that included alabaster and quartz—in lumps that took the light reflected into the painting and made it dance.3”
― Victoria Finlay, quote from Color: A Natural History of the Palette


“The use of natural pigments is similarly embodied in the Orthodox teaching that humanity—like all Creation—was created pure but not perfect, and the purpose of being born is to reach your true potential.”
― Victoria Finlay, quote from Color: A Natural History of the Palette



“But color—like sound and scent—is just an invention of the human mind responding to waves and particles that are moving in particular patterns through the universe—and poets should not thank nature but themselves for the beauty and the rainbows they see around them. While”
― Victoria Finlay, quote from Color: A Natural History of the Palette


“Chauvet Cave: The Discovery of the World’s Oldest Paintings, Jean-Marie Chauvet”
― Victoria Finlay, quote from Color: A Natural History of the Palette


“When our eyes see the whole range of visible light together, they read it as “white.” When some of the wavelengths are missing, they see it as “colored.”
― Victoria Finlay, quote from Color: A Natural History of the Palette


“The best way I’ve found of understanding this is to think not so much of something “being” a color but of it “doing” a color.”
― Victoria Finlay, quote from Color: A Natural History of the Palette


About the author

Victoria Finlay
Born date November 19, 1964
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Sometimes I want to quit - not performing, but being a woman altogether. I want to throw my hands in the air after reading a mean Twitter comment and say, "All right, you got me. You figured me out. I'm not pretty. I'm not thin. I don't deserve love. I have no right to use my voice. I will start wearing a burka and move to a small town upstate and wait tables at a pancake house."
So much has changed about me since I was that confident, happy girl in high school. In the years since then, I've experienced a lot of desperation and self-doubt, but in a way, I've come full circle. I know my worth. I embrace my power. I say if I'm beautiful. I say if I'm strong. You will not determine my story. I will. I'll speak and share and fuck and love, and I will never apologise for it. I am amazing for you, not because of you. I am not who I sleep with. I am not my weight. I am not my mother. I am myself. And I am all of you.”
― Amy Schumer, quote from The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo


“When you spend your whole life faking happiness, it becomes a second emotion.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push


“The bravest are usually those whom we do not know or hear about, those anonymous men who dig the trenches, who produce the food.”
― F. Sionil José, quote from Dusk


“with their mouth open they’ll eat an average of five spiders a night, which is kind of believable if you think about it. Another time Rodrick told me that it’s dangerous to wake someone up when they’re sleepwalking. I thought there could be a chance he was actually telling the truth, because I’m pretty sure I heard that one somewhere else. ZZZZZ”
― Jeff Kinney, quote from Double Down


“He’s just so…so…unyielding.”
“Wow, is that one of your SAT words?”
“Ha-ha, very funny. You know what I mean, though.”
She shrugs. “Yeah, I know. He’s always been that way. I kind of figured he’d grow out of it.”
“Well, don’t hold your breath. That boy’s got a stick up his ass, if you ask me.”
“A very attractive one at that.”
“What, the stick or his ass?”
― Kristi Cook, quote from Magnolia


Interesting books

The Book of Embraces
(4.2K)
The Book of Embraces
by Eduardo Galeano
The Year of Yes
(1.4K)
The Year of Yes
by Maria Dahvana Headley
Ten Little Indians
(5.9K)
Ten Little Indians
by Sherman Alexie
Freddy and the Ignormus
(306)
Of Marriageable Age
(1.9K)
Of Marriageable Age
by Sharon Maas
Njal's Saga
(3.4K)

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.