“There are but two strong conquerors of the forgetfulness of men, Poetry and Architecture; and the latter in some sort includes the former, and is mightier in its reality.”
John Ruskin
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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.
“All good architecture is the expression of national life and character.”
John Ruskin
CultureCharacter
“Taste is not only a part and an index of morality - it is the only morality.”
John Ruskin
TasteMorality
“The right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this: Was it done with enjoyment - was the carver happy while he was about it?”
John Ruskin
CraftsmanshipJoy
“Do not let us talk then of restoration. The thing is a Lie from beginning to end.”
John Ruskin
PreservationHeritage
“Take proper care of your monuments, and you will not need to restore them.”
John Ruskin
PreservationHeritage
“We have no right whatever to touch them. They are not ours.”
John Ruskin
HeritageResponsibility
“Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.”
John Ruskin
MeaningDesign
“Wherever you can rest, there decorate; where rest is forbidden, so is beauty.”
John Ruskin
OrnamentDesign
“Symmetry is a proper agreement between the members of the work itself.”
Vitruvius
SymmetryProportion
“Without symmetry and proportion there can be no principles in the design of any temple.”
Vitruvius
SymmetryDesign Principles
“Proportion is a correspondence among the measures of the members of an entire work.”
Vitruvius
ProportionHarmony
“Neither natural ability without instruction nor instruction without natural ability can make the perfect artist.”
Vitruvius
LearningTalent
“Architecture depends on Order, Arrangement, Eurythmy, Symmetry, Propriety and Economy.”
Vitruvius
Design PrinciplesDefinition
“Nature has designed the human body so that its members are duly proportioned to the frame as a whole.”
Vitruvius
ProportionHuman Body
“It must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exultation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line.”
Louis Sullivan
SkyscrapersDesign
“The true secret of happiness lies in the taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.”
William Morris
DetailsHappiness
“Nothing can be a work of art which is not useful.”
William Morris
FunctionArt
“I do not want art for a few, any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few.”
William Morris
ArtEquality
“The past is not dead, it is living in us, and will be alive in the future which we are now helping to make.”
William Morris
HistoryFuture
“Beauty, which is what is meant by art, is no mere accident to human life, but a positive necessity of life.”
William Morris
BeautyLife
“The great test of Architectural beauty is the fitness of the design to the purpose for which it is intended.”
Augustus Pugin
FunctionBeauty
“In things to be seen at once, much variety makes confusion, another vice of beauty.”
Christopher Wren
SimplicityDesign
“The city is like some large house, and the house is in turn like some small city.”
Leon Battista Alberti
Urban DesignHome
“The redundant is the injurious.”
Horatio Greenough
SimplicityDesign