Literary notes about Design (AI summary)
Literature employs the term "design" in multifaceted ways, often bridging the gap between purposeful planning and inherent order. It can denote a character’s premeditated scheme or secret plot, as when a hidden agenda disrupts the norms of society or politics [1, 2, 3]. At the same time, "design" frequently stands for the aesthetic or structural arrangement in art and architecture, highlighting a deliberate effort to achieve beauty or unity in composition [4, 5, 6]. Philosophical and theological works extend this notion further by invoking design as evidence of a divine or natural order inherent in the world, suggesting that even disparate elements may form a coherent whole [7, 8, 9]. In these varied usages, the word enriches narratives by drawing attention to both the tacit intentions of individuals and the overarching patterns that shape human experience.
- Do you design any thing else by this proceeding in which you are engaged than to destroy us, the laws, and the whole city, so far as you are able?
— from Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates by Plato - Their sister Helena, the wife of Constantine, revealed, or supposed, their treacherous design of assassinating her husband at the royal banquet.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - The execution of their design was opposed by weighty and almost insuperable obstacles.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - On the application of fire to the whole, this composition turns black, leaving the design strongly outlined.
— from Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 01 (of 10) by Giorgio Vasari - I feel certain that the old painters, like the Venetians, were far more systematic and had far more hard and fast principles of design than ourselves.
— from The Practice and Science of Drawing by Harold Speed - There is a particular rhythmic beauty about a well-ordered arrangement of tone values that is a very important part of pictorial design.
— from The Practice and Science of Drawing by Harold Speed - Such mutual fitting of things diverse in origin argued design, it was held; and the designer was always treated as a man-loving deity.
— from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking by William James - or, Why so late?—for the design of Him who sends it is impenetrable by human capacity.
— from The City of God, Volume I by Bishop of Hippo Saint Augustine - The design may have failed through the disappearance of Hythloday, concerning whom we have ‘very uncertain news’ after his departure.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato
