Quotes by Architects - Page 2

If you want to call it quits, just tell me. Man up and say it to my face. Don’t just skulk around.

J.M. Richards

Writing on architecture is not like history or poetry.

Vitruvius Pollio

Nothing is more likely than that [the] enumeration of powers is defective. This is the ordinary case of all human works. Let us then go on perfecting it by adding by way of amendment to the Constitution those powers which time and trial show are still wanting

Thomas Jefferson

When you look on one of your contemporary 'good copies' of historical remains ask yourself the question: Not what style but in what civilization is this building? And the absurdity vulgarity anachronism and solecism of the modern structure will be revealed to you in a most startling fashion.

Louis H. Sullivan

There were millions of such families anxious only for peace and quiet in their own little nests. These were the mounting blocks by which the criminals climbed to power and kept it.

Simon Wiesenthal

The house does not frame the view: it projects the beholder into it.

Harwell Hamilton Harris

I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

Thomas Jefferson

They (religions) dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live.

Thomas Jefferson

I cannot take your sense of humor--and, with it, you've nothing to fear from me.

Norton Juster

When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.

Thomas Jefferson

Take nothing for granted as beautiful or ugly but take every building to pieces and challenge every feature. Learn to distinguish the curious from the beautiful. Get the habit of analysis - analysis will in time enable synthesis to become your habit of mind. 'Think simples' as my old master used to say - meaning to reduce the whole of its parts into the simplest terms getting back to first principles.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Buckminster Fuller explained to me once that because our world is constructed from geometric relations like the Golden Ratio or the Fibonacci Series, by thinking about geometry all the time, you could organize and harmonize your life with the structure of the world.

Einar Thorsteinn

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

Thomas Jefferson

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.

Thomas Jefferson

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading subjugation on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it: for man is an imitative animal.

Thomas Jefferson

The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what's in between, and they took great pleasure in doing just that.

Norton Juster

I do not take a single newspaper nor read one a month and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

Thomas Jefferson

If we believe the Canon is closed and Scripture is sufficient, then we believe God is not speaking new words apart from Scripture.

Dan Phillips

I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary — the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there's a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trimtab.It's a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trimtab. Society thinks it's going right by you, that it's left you altogether. But if you're doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go.So I said, call me Trimtab.

R. Buckminster Fuller

The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.

Michelangelo

Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context - a chair in a room a room in a house a house in an environment an environment in a city plan.

Eero Saarinen

Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

Thomas Jefferson

The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to.

Thomas Jefferson

War is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.

Thomas Jefferson

Dare to be naive.

R. Buckminster Fuller

The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes which may greatly afflict us; and, to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes should be one of the principal studies and endeavors of our lives. The only method of doing this is to assume a perfect resignation to the Divine will, to consider that whatever does happen, must happen; and that, by our uneasiness, we cannot prevent the blow before it does fall, but we may add to its force after it has fallen. These considerations, and others such as these, may enable us in some measure to surmount the difficulties thrown in our way; to bear up with a tolerable degree of patience under the burden of life; and to proceed with a pious and unshaken resignation, till we arrive at our journey's end.

Thomas Jefferson

Critique by creating.

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Taste cannot be controlled by law.

Thomas Jefferson

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

Thomas Jefferson

Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.

Thomas Jefferson

Precious is sleep, better to be of stone,while the oppression and the shame still last;not seeing and not hearing, I am blest;so do not wake me, hush! keep your voice down.

Michelangelo Buonarroti

...mirages are things that aren't really there that you can see very clearly.""How do you see something that isn't there?"..."sometimes it's much simpler than seeing things that are"...

Norton Juster

A house is a machine for living.

Buckminster Fuller

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

Thomas Jefferson

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Thomas Jefferson

Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space.

Mies Van Der Rohe

I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence.

Thomas Jefferson

It is well with me only when I have a chisel in my hand.

Michelangelo

Every man wishes to pursue his occupation and to enjoy the fruits of his labours and the produce of his property in peace and safety and with the least possible expense. When these things are accomplished all the objects for which government ought to be established are answered.

Thomas Jefferson

It be urged that the wild and uncultivated tree, hitherto yielding sour and bitter fruit only, can never be made to yield better; yet we know that the grafting art implants a new tree on the savage stock, producing what is most estimable in kind and degree. Education, in like manner, engrafts a new man on the native stock, and improves what in his nature was vicious and perverse into qualities of virtue and social worth.

Thomas Jefferson

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. ... But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security...

Thomas Jefferson

If a due participation of office is a matter of right how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few: by resignation none.

Thomas Jefferson

If you criticize what you’re doing too early you’ll never write the first li

Max Frisch

Nice slippers,” Davin grinned. They were green and furry. “Thanks.” I shrugged and looked him over, half expecting to see a new injury. “So what’s up?” He had one hand behind his back.

J.M. Richards

You must study the Masters but guard the original style that beats within your soul and put to sword those who would try to steal it.

El Greco

Architecture is the very mirror of life. You only have to cast your eyes on buildings to feel the presence of the past, the spirit of a place; they are the reflection of society.

I.M. Pei

I never did or countenanced in public life a single act inconsistent with the strictest good faith having never believed there was one code of morality for a public and another for a private man.

Thomas Jefferson

Architecture (is) a theatre stage setting where the leading actors are the people and to dramatically direct the dialogue between these people and space is the technique of designing.

Kisho Kurokawa

Don't call what isn't prophecy "prophecy." Don't say "the Lord told me" if you're not about to quote a Bible verse.

Dan Phillips

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans and must be that of every free state.

Thomas Jefferson

If it sells, it's art.

Frank Lloyd Wright

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

Thomas Jefferson

I come to listen to your pain and to hear the stories and memories of a few obsessed citizens. Jerusalem, I come to you in disguise: in over-colourful, immodest clothes and vulgar make-up... The only way I could come to you was in disguise, as a whore.

Suad Amiry

Pictures deface walls oftener than they decorate them.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Television is chewing gum for the eyes.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Architecture begins when you place two bricks carefully together.

Mies Van Der Rohe

We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.

Thomas Jefferson

I find that the harder I work , the more luck I seem to have.

Thomas Jefferson

The thing always happens that you really believe in and the belief in a thing makes it happen.

Frank Lloyd Wright

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