“Beauty will result from the form and correspondence of the whole, with respect to the several parts, of the parts with regard to each other, and of these again to the whole.”
Andrea Palladio
ProportionHarmony
Architecture Quotes
200 FAMOUS QUOTES · ARCHITECTURE
Architecture Quotes
Read the best architecture quotes on design, beauty, buildings and building for the future from Vitruvius, John Ruskin, Louis Sullivan and more.
“There should be no features about a building which are not necessary for convenience, construction, or propriety.”
Augustus Pugin
Design PrinciplesSimplicity
“All ornament should consist of enrichment of the essential construction of the building.”
Augustus Pugin
OrnamentConstruction
“Every form which cannot be justified by its structure must be rejected.”
Eugène Viollet-le-Duc
StructureDesign
“Beauty is the promise of function.”
Horatio Greenough
BeautyFunction
“Have nothing in your house that has not given pleasure to the man who made it and is not a pleasure to those who use it.”
Oscar Wilde
CraftsmanshipHome
“Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house, a world; and beyond its world, a heaven.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
HomeSpirit
“The hand that rounded Peter's dome, and groined the aisles of Christian Rome, wrought in a sad sincerity.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
CraftsmanshipFaith
“Beauty rests on necessities. The line of beauty is the result of perfect economy.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
BeautySimplicity
“What of architectural beauty I now see, I know has gradually grown from within outward, out of the necessities and character of the indweller.”
Henry David Thoreau
BeautyCharacter
“Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them.”
Henry David Thoreau
HomeSimplicity
“Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter?”
Henry David Thoreau
BuildingCraftsmanship
“All are architects of Fate, working in these walls of Time.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
DestinyLife
“Our to-days and yesterdays are the blocks with which we build.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
TimeBuilding
“In the elder days of Art, builders wrought with greatest care each minute and unseen part; for the Gods see everywhere.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
CraftsmanshipDetail
“Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established.”
The Bible (Proverbs 24:3)
WisdomHome
“Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.”
The Bible (Psalm 127:1)
FaithBuilding
“I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock.”
The Bible (Matthew 7:24)
FoundationWisdom
“For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost.”
The Bible (Luke 14:28)
PlanningCost
“The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.”
The Bible (Psalm 118:22)
CornerstoneFaith
“Every wise woman buildeth her house.”
The Bible (Proverbs 14:1)
HomeWisdom
“For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.”
The Bible (Hebrews 3:4)
CreationFaith
“When we mean to build, we first survey the plot, then draw the model.”
William Shakespeare
PlanningDesign
“The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve.”
William Shakespeare
TimeImpermanence
“The door and windows are cut out from the walls to form an apartment; but it is on the empty space within, that its use depends.”
Lao Tzu
SpaceDesign