Judging from the ugly and repugnant things that are sometimes in vogue, it would seem as though fashion were desirous of exhibiting its power by getting us to adopt the most atrocious things for its sake alone. – Georg Simmel
Every relationship between persons causes a picture of each to take form in the mind of the other, and this picture evidently is in reciprocal relationship with that personal relationship. – Georg Simmel
In the latter case life rests upon a thousand presuppositions which the individual can never trace back to their origins, and verify but which he must accept upon faith and belief. – Georg Simmel
For, to be a stranger is naturally a very positive relation it is a specific form of interaction. – Georg Simmel
The first purpose of clothes… was not warmth or decency, but ornament…. Among wild people, we find tattooing and painting even prior to clothes. The first spiritual want of a barbarous man is decoration; as indeed we still see among the barbarous classes in civilized countries. – Thomas Carlyle