"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se"
About this Quote
The pivot is “quality of the connections.” Eames is quietly demoting “quality” from a luxury finish or a museum label to a relational standard: how well an idea fits its use, how gracefully a material behaves, how honestly a product meets the people who live with it. That’s why the quote works: it refuses the usual either/or of art versus utility. Quality isn’t a halo you sprinkle on an object at the end; it’s the cumulative integrity of choices across a chain.
Context matters. Mid-century modernism often promised salvation through clean lines and mass production; Eames, especially through his furniture and films, treated mass production as a moral test. Can you make something for many without lowering the intelligence of the thing? The subtext is ethical: bad connections are waste, alienation, friction disguised as style. Good connections are empathy made visible, where design becomes a social skill, not just an aesthetic one.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | Charles Eames — quote cited on Wikiquote: "Eventually everything connects — people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se." |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Eames, Charles. (2026, January 15). Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/eventually-everything-connects-people-ideas-21481/
Chicago Style
Eames, Charles. "Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/eventually-everything-connects-people-ideas-21481/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/eventually-everything-connects-people-ideas-21481/. Accessed 8 Feb. 2026.







