Chamblee54

One of the phrases that makes more and more sense to PG is “G-d is in the details”, as well as the alternate, “The devil is in the details”.The Moonies teach that G-d is the personality of the cosmos, the difference between a human being and $4.98 worth of chemicals. If you suspect that G-d is a form of knowledge, the dna of life, then this view stands up. If you suspect that G-d and the Devil are closely related, you may find having two sayings to be redundant. If you believe in the G-d of the Bible, and that the Bible is the word of G-d, you might choose to differ.
A visit to Google City yields some alternate views. Thinkexist credits the quote (using G-d) to an architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. He is also credited with saying “I don’t want to be interesting. I want to be good.” and “less is more”. The page with this information has an ad for Life cereal bars from the Quaker company.
A blogger named John D. Cook has a post on GIITD ( which is similar to G-d. Perhaps that is what the dash really stands for.) His starter paragraph says a mouthful: “Some say “The devil is in the details,” meaning solutions break down when you examine them closely enough. Some say “God is in the details,” meaning opportunities for discovery and creativity come from digging into the details. Both are true, but the latter is more interesting.” Mr. Mies is deceased, so he cannot comment about his preference for goodness.
Mr. Cook has a mercifully brief post on the subject. The last paragraph is about statistics, which he maintains is dull on the surface but gains excitement with knowledge. PG suspects that the boring reputation of statistics is a ruse. The creative accountants and bureaucrats want you to be intimidated by all those numbers, so you will not look closely at their lies.
A British facility called ThePhraseFinder takes a look at the Satanic form, The Devil is in the details. ( The ad here is for Groupon, and shows three overloaded hamburgers with the saying, “See Today’s Deal”.) Here, the Devil version is a degeneration on GIITD. Here the phrase is attributed to Gustave Flaubert, who said “Le bon Dieu est dans le detail”. Michelangelo, Mr. Mies, and art historian Aby Warburg. The sixteenth edition of Bartlett’s “Familiar Quotations” credits someone named anonymous.
At this point, it is time for a details war story. In the first draft of this post, PG referred to someone named Mr. van der Rohe. This began to seem odd, so a trip to Wikipedia village was made. It seems as though the famous architect was called “Mies” by friends and colleagues, after his surname. It would seem appropriate to refer to him as Mr. Mies.
Pictures for today’s entertainment are from The Library of Congress. These photographs of students from the Ottoman Empire were taken between 1880 and 1893. Many were by the photo firm of Sebah & Joaillier, Phot., Constantinople.