Taste

Famous quotes containing the word taste:

“What is exhilarating in bad taste is the aristocratic pleasure of giving offense.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)

“Come, give thy soul a loose, and taste the pleasures of the poor.
Sometimes ‘tis grateful for the rich to try
A short vicissitude, and fit of poverty:
A savory dish, a homely treat,
Where all is plain, where all is neat,
Without the stately spacious room,
The Persian carpet, or the Tyrian loom,
Clear up the cloudy foreheads of the great.”
—Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] (65–8)

“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)