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Quotations about the Color Gray
No things could seem further apart than the doubt of grey and the decision of scarlet. Yet grey and red can mingle, as they do in the morning clouds... ~G. K. Chesterton, "The Glory of Grey," Alarms and Discursions, 1910
Shadow, said Augustine, is the Queen of Colour. Colour sings in the grey. ~Derek Jarman (1942–1994), "Grey Matter," Chroma: A Book of Colour —
A warm, rich grey is always beautiful in any place and under every circumstance... ~John Ruskin, The Poetry of Architecture, 1873
Gray is one of the most valuable, if not the most valuable of the semi-neutral colours. In its numerous hues, shades, and tints it is always a refined and agreeable colour... ~George Ashdown Audsley, Colour Harmony in Dress, 1912
...gray denotes a class of cool cinereous colours... ~George Field
Now, among the heresies that are spoken in this matter is the habit of calling a grey day a "colourless" day. Grey is a colour, and can be a very powerful and pleasing colour... A grey clouded sky is indeed a canopy between us and the sun; so is a green tree, if it comes to that. But the grey umbrellas differ as much as the green in their style and shape, in their tint and tilt. One day may be grey like steel, and another grey like dove's plumage. One may seem grey like the deathly frost, and another grey like the smoke of substantial kitchens. ~G. K. Chesterton, "The Glory of Grey," Alarms and Discursions, 1910
Variety of climate should always go with stability of abode... an Englishman's house is not only his castle; it is his fairy castle. Clouds and colours of every varied dawn and eve are perpetually touching and turning it from clay to gold, or from gold to ivory. There is a line of woodland beyond a corner of my garden which is literally different on every one of the three hundred and sixty-five days. Sometimes it seems as near as a hedge, and sometimes as far as a faint and fiery evening cloud. ~G. K. Chesterton, "The Glory of Grey," Alarms and Discursions, 1910
At nightfall, colors disappear. Moon's paintbrush has only a palette of shadows: creamy gray, inky black, illusive indigo. ~Dr. SunWolf, tweet, 2013, professorsunwolf.com
The prevailing colour in nine-tenths of our existences is grey. ~Charles Searle, Look Here!, 1885
Grays, like the other semi-neutrals, are sober, modest colours... bordering upon the powers of black, but aiding the livelier and more cheering expressions of the other colours by diversity, connection, and contrast, and partaking of the more tender and delicate influence belonging to white. ~George Field
Anyhow, grey is not white!... still you can't call it black either! ~R. Nisbet Bain, 1894, quoting Hans Christian Andersen quoting Drummond Hay quoting the Moorish Märchen of the Ravens
Grey is coming more and more to the fore and Worth predicts that we shall see a great deal of this lovely neutral shade this Fall. ~"Forecasting the Fall Colors," Dresses, August 1927
In addition to the neutral gray... we have blue-grays, purple-grays, olive-grays, green-grays, and, indeed, an infinite series of hues in which blue enters. ~George Ashdown Audsley, Colour Harmony in Dress, 1912
...the beautiful greys and smokes and pearls of the winter afternoon. ~L. M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs, 1925
"Yes, and it's a pretty grey. You know what I mean, dear; not a common grey. Of course grey is always an uninteresting colour."
"It's quiet."
"...It's always a safe colour — grey." ~Jerome K. Jerome, "On the Art of Making Up One's Mind," The Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, 1898
For all was blank, and bleak, and grey,
It was not night — it was not day...
~Lord Byron
The enemies of grey... are fond of bringing forward the argument that colours suffer in grey weather, and that strong sunlight is necessary to all the hues of heaven and earth... It is true that sun is needed to burnish and bring into bloom the tertiary and dubious colours; the colour of peat, pea-soup, Impressionist sketches, brown velvet coats, olives, grey and blue slates, the complexions of vegetarians, the tints of volcanic rock, chocolate, cocoa, mud, soot, slime, old boots; the delicate shades of these do need the sunlight to bring out the faint beauty that often clings to them.
But... if you choke your garden with poppies and geraniums, if you paint your house sky-blue and scarlet, if you wear, let us say, a golden top-hat and a crimson frock-coat, you will not only be visible on the greyest day, but you will notice that your costume and environment produce a certain singular effect... rich colours actually look more luminous on a grey day, because they are seen against a sombre background and seem to be burning with a lustre of their own. ~G. K. Chesterton, "The Glory of Grey," Alarms and Discursions, 1910
An evening red and a morning grey is a sign of a fair day. ~Proverb
Most unfortunately for yourself you are an idealist, which means that you put your own mind's colour on a world's common grey canvas. When the colour comes off and the dull grey is seen, you are disappointed, and you feel you will not try putting on the same tint again. ~Marie Corelli, Love, — And the Philosopher: A Study in Sentiment, 1923
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published 2013 Mar 31
revised 2018 Mar 14
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