Quoth+the+Map


 * A collection of quotations relating to maps and mapping.**

"A road map always tells you everything except how to fold it" -unknown- [posted by rob-g]

"War is God's way of teaching Americans Geography." -Ambrose Bierce [posted by joshd]

"A simple person that desires simple things in life, fun **maps** and a little beer. Do you read me Devil?" Frank Zappa [posted by natron]

“Good design is simply the best solution among many, given a set of constraints imposed by the problem” Dent, 1999. [posted by patg]

"I do not advance that the face of our country would change if the maps which Philadelphia sends forth all over the Union were more decently colored, but certainly it would indicate that the Graces were more frequently at home on the banks of our lovely rivers, if the engravers were able to sell their **maps** less boisterously painted and not as they are now, each county of each state in flaming red, bright yellow, or a flagrant orange dye arrayed, like the cover produced by the united efforts of a quilting match. When I once complained of this barbarous offensive coloring of **maps**, the **geographer** assured me that he would not sell them unless bedaubed in this way; 'for, said he, the greatest number of the large **maps** are not sold for any purpose of utility, but to ornament the walls of barrooms. My agents write continually to me to color high.' This reason was given me by one of the first **geographers** of the United States, who has himself a perfectly correct idea of the tasteful coloring of **maps**." --from Francis Lieber, "On Hipponomastics: A Letter to Pierce M. Butler," //Southern Literary Messenger// 3 (5) (May 1837). [posted by patg]

"Different goals lead to different **maps**! Frequently the quality of a **map** is a matter of perspective, not design. This is because a **map** is a statement locating facts, and people tend to select the facts that make their case. That's what the **map** is for: to make their case." Krygier & Wood, 2005. [posted by patg]

“Confusion and clutter are failures of design, not attributes of information” Tufte, 1990. [posted by patg]

"This second, more subtle form of **cartographic** censorship usually occurs as silences - as features or conditions ignored. Hence basic **maps** of most cities show streets, landmark structures, elevations, parks, churches, and large museums - but not dangerous intersections, impoverished neighborhoods, high crime areas, and other zones of danger and misery that could be accommodated without sacrificing information about infrastructure and terrain. By omitting politically threatening or aesthetically unattractive aspects of geographic reality, and by focusing on the interest of civil engineers, geologists, public administrators, and land developers, or topographic **'base maps'** are hardly basic to the concerns of public health and safety officials, social workers, and citizens rightfully concerned about the well-being of themselves and others. In this sense, cartographic silences are indeed a form of geographic disinformation." Monmonier, //How to Lie with Maps.// [posted by patg]

"As adults our **mental maps** are a potpourri of fact and fiction, gleaned through a haphazard combination of direct and indirect, and extrasensory experience. Some aspects of it are egocentric and based on connected paths, while other bits are geocentric and based on Euclidean distance-direction relations. We have forgotten some things and seen others incorrectly. Our fears and prejudices and longings have biased our way of looking at the world. It is understandable that a combination of these factors may badly warp our image of the environment." Muehrcke and Muehrcke, 1992. [posted by patg]

"In our consumer society, **mapping** has become an activity primarily reserved for those in power, used to delineate the 'property' of nation states and multi-national companies. The making of **maps** has become dominated by specialists who wield satellites and other complex machinery. The result is that although we have great access to **maps**, we have also lost the ability ourselves to conceptualize, make and use images of place - skills which our ancestors honed over thousands of years. In return for this surrendered knowledge, **maps** have been appropriated for uses which are more and more sinister. Spewed forth from digital abstraction, they guide the incessant development juggernaut. They divide the whole local, regional, and continental environments into the absurdity of squared efficiency. They aid in attaching legitimacy to a reductionist control that strips contact with the web of life from the experience of place." Aberly, //Boundaries of Home,// 1993. [posted by patg]

"Serial Killer Maury Travis used an **online mapping service** to show a newspaper reporter where he dumped a body. A former Las Vegas exotic dancer convicted of stalking her ex-lover posted a **map** on the Web with directions to the married man's home." Source: May Wong, "[|Fears, Abuse Accompany Proliferation of Internet Maps]". [posted by patg]

Map Geek Defined: "Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, "When I grow up I will go there."" Joseph Conrad, //Heart of Darkness//. [posted by Mike Freeman]

"I may stray once in a while, but I stay pretty close to the road map. I tend not to wind up in Australia when I'm heading for Portugal" (David Eddings) [posted by nmolina]

"Two characteristics of maps should be noticed. A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness. If the map could be ideally correct, it would include, in a reduced scale, the map of the map; the map of the map, of the map; and so on, endlessly......" Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity, etc. Copyright © 1949. [posted by nmolina]

"The art of Biography Is different from Geography, Geography is about Maps, But Biography is about chaps. [Biography for Beginners]" Edmund Clerihew Bentley [posted by Mike Freeman]

"If geography is prose, maps are iconography." Lennart Meri [posted by Brett]


 * [|Lucy Lippard]** is an internationally known writer, activist and curator from the United States who wrote and taught during the late 1960s and retired in 1999 having published eighteen books about contemporary art, feminism, politics, and place/space relevance. She seems to be very spatially aware. She once remarked, "I would venture to say that places have profoundly influenced my life, probably more than people have." [posted by: Adam Vaught]

“That’s another thing we’ve learned from your Nation,” said Mein Herr, “map-making. But we’ve carried it much further than you. What o you consider the largest map that would be really useful?” “About six inches to the mile.” “Only about six inches!” exclaimed Mein Herr. “We very soon got to six yards to the mile. Then we tried a hundred yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country on the scale of a mile to the mile!” “Have you used it much?” I enquired. “It has never been spread out yet,” said Mein Herr: “the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well.” Carroll, L. 1893: //Sylvie and Bruno concluded.// [New York: Dover Publications, 1988.] [posted by Mike Freeman]

"It is not down in any map; true places never are." Herman Melville, best known for //Moby Dick.// [posted by Kevin Marino]

"Maps encourage boldness. They're like cryptic love letters. They make anything seem possible." --Mark Jenkins [posted by rob-g]

Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change. Muhammad Ali (Jesse Rodrigue)

Maps are like text books, but way more fun to look at. -Cole Anderson (posted by Cole Anderson)

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