"There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection"
About this Quote
His specific intent is practical propaganda for a better modernity. Machinery, embankments, railways, iron bridges: the checklist is pointedly public-facing, the stuff that shapes daily life and the skyline. Wells insists these forms don’t inherently demand visual offense; what makes them offensive is “imperfection” - shoddy design, cost-cutting disguised as realism, engineering stripped from imagination. He’s smuggling an aesthetic program into a moral claim: if we build carelessly, we also live carelessly.
The subtext cuts two ways. It’s an argument against the romantic reflex to despise the industrial world, but also against the industrialist reflex to excuse ugliness as efficiency. “Oblige them to be ugly” sounds like he’s cross-examining an alibi. The real culprit is human choice: a failure of standards, coordination, and respect for the public realm.
Context matters: Wells wrote from the churn of late-19th and early-20th century Britain, where mass engineering was remaking cities and class life. His provocation anticipates today’s fights over hostile architecture, value engineering, and why so much “functional” design looks like it gave up.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
|---|---|
| Source | Verified source: A Modern Utopia (H.G. Wells, 1905)
Evidence: There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection; a thing of human making is for the most part ugly in proportion to the poverty of its constructive thought, to the failure of its producer fully to grasp the purpose of its being. (Chapter 3 (“Utopian Economics”), §8 (page number varies by edition)). This is a primary-source passage by H. G. Wells in A Modern Utopia. Bibliographic evidence indicates the book’s first book publication was in 1905 (London: Chapman & Hall). The work was also first printed serially in The Fortnightly Review from October 1904 to April 1905, so the earliest appearance is likely in that serial run (I did not locate the exact Fortnightly Review installment/page containing this specific sentence in the time available). A library catalog record explicitly notes the serialization dates and the 1905 Chapman & Hall publication details. Other candidates (1) Delphi Collected Works of H. G. Wells (Illustrated) (H. G. Wells, 2013) compilation98.5% H. G. Wells. vale of Urseren will be wanting ... There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and r... |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Wells, H.G. (2026, February 17). There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/there-is-nothing-in-machinery-there-is-nothing-in-12843/
Chicago Style
Wells, H.G. "There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection." FixQuotes. February 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/there-is-nothing-in-machinery-there-is-nothing-in-12843/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection." FixQuotes, 17 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/there-is-nothing-in-machinery-there-is-nothing-in-12843/. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.
