Quotes by Stephen Bayley

Stephen Bayley

As the twentieth century ends, commerce and culture are coming closer together. The distinction between life and art has been eroded by fifty years of enhanced communications, ever-improving reproduction technologies and increasing wealth.

Art

Communication

Technology

Everyone has taste, yet it is more of a taboo subject than sex or money. The reason for this is simple: claims about your attitudes to or achievements in the carnal and financial arenas can be disputed only by your lover and your financial advisers, whereas by making statements about your taste you expose body and soul to terrible scrutiny. Taste is a merciless betrayer of social and cultural attitudes. Thus, while anybody will tell you as much (and perhaps more than) you want to know about their triumphs in bed and at the bank, it is taste that gets people’s nerves tingling.

Attitude

Sex

Simple

Fashion is primitive in its insistence on exhibitionism, which withers in isolation. The catwalk fashion show with its incandescent hype is its apotheosis. A ritualized gathering of connoiseurs and the spoilt at a spotlit parade of snazzy pulchritude, it is an industrialized version of the pagan festivals of renewal. At the end of each seasonal display, a priesthood is enjoined to carry news of the omens to the masses.

Fashion

Gathering

Hype

Fashion is the most intense expression of the phenomenon of neomania, which has grown ever since the birth of capitalism. Neomania assumes that purchasing the new is the same as acquiring value… If the purchase of a new garment coincides with the wearing out of an old one, then obviously there is no fashion. If a garment is worn beyond the moment of its natural replacement, there is pauperization. Fashion flourishes on surplus, when someone buys more than he or she needs.

Expression

Fashion

Needs

I have a character failing. I am quite incapable of identifying with anything whole-heartedly. Whatever I am doing, I am always planning to do something else. I would rather travel than arrive.

Character

Failing

Planning

I have no particular interest in antiquities or antiques, but I like things to meet a certain aesthetic.

Antiques

Certain

Interest

I have put [the word] “discoveries” in inverted commas because scientific results, perhaps as much at least as artistic achievements, are a product of contemporary taste, driven by momentary appetites rather than eternal verities.

Achievement

Discovery

Taste

I just don’t understand how you can not be concerned about your appearance. From time to time I’m vilified as the person who cares about the look of a teapot – and it’s not that I believe my taste is superior , I just can not believe that other people don’t care.

Believe

People

Who Cares

I wouldn’t mind someone lobbing hand grenades at me, but having to reset the timer on the video recorder puts me into a blood-spitting frenzy.

Blood

Hands

Mind

If you were born in Britain after World War II, you see a continuous atmosphere of decline, moral and economic and political.

Atmosphere

Political

War

Follow The Behaviour University in order to get the greatest quotes from the greatest people of all time so that you can tap into your own greatness.

Achievement

Antiques

Art

Artist

Aspire

Assumption

Atmosphere

Attitude

Believe

Blood

Boards

Century

Certain

Challenges

Character

Communication

Condescending

Cooking

Design

Discovery

Easier

Effort

Expression

Failing

Fashion

Furniture

Gathering

Getting Older

Hands

House

Hype

Insecurity

Interest

Males

Mechanic

Men

Mind

Needs

Offering

People

Planning

Political

Process

Reality

Rich

Role Models

Roles

Sacrifice

Sex

Shoes

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

Tool

The Autobiography

Tool

The Behaviour Diary

Tool

The Dating Diary

Tool

The Relationship Therapist

Tool

Quotes by Stephen Bayley

Stephen Bayley

As the twentieth century ends, commerce and culture are coming closer together. The distinction between life and art has been eroded by fifty years of enhanced communications, ever-improving reproduction technologies and increasing wealth.

I have a character failing. I am quite incapable of identifying with anything whole-heartedly. Whatever I am doing, I am always planning to do something else. I would rather travel than arrive.

I have no particular interest in antiquities or antiques, but I like things to meet a certain aesthetic.

I have put [the word] “discoveries” in inverted commas because scientific results, perhaps as much at least as artistic achievements, are a product of contemporary taste, driven by momentary appetites rather than eternal verities.

I just don’t understand how you can not be concerned about your appearance. From time to time I’m vilified as the person who cares about the look of a teapot – and it’s not that I believe my taste is superior , I just can not believe that other people don’t care.

I wouldn’t mind someone lobbing hand grenades at me, but having to reset the timer on the video recorder puts me into a blood-spitting frenzy.

If you were born in Britain after World War II, you see a continuous atmosphere of decline, moral and economic and political.

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Topics by Stephen Bayley

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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