Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning. There should not be a single ornament put upon great civic buildings, without some intellectual intention.
It was stated, * * * that the value of architecture depended on two distinct characters:—the one, the impression it receives from human power; the other, the image it bears of the natural creation.
I would have, then, our ordinary dwelling-houses built to last, and built to be lovely; as rich and full of pleasantness as may be within and without: * * * with such differences as might suit and express each man's character and occupation, and partly his history.
Therefore when we build, let us think that we build (public edifices) forever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone, let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, "See! this our fathers did for us."
We require from buildings, as from men, two kinds of goodness: first, the doing their practical duty well: then that they be graceful and pleasing in doing it; which last is itself another form of duty.
Architecture is the work of nations.
No person who is not a great sculptor or painter, can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder.
Ornamentation is the principal part of architecture, considered as a subject of fine art.
Since it [architecture] is music in space, as it were a frozen music. . . . If architecture in general is frozen music.
When we mean to build,
We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
And when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection.
'Fore God, you have here a goodly dwelling and a rich.
He that has a house to put's head in has a good head-piece.
La vue d'un tel monument est comme une musique continuelle et fixee qui vous attend pour vous faire du bien quand vous vous en approchez.
The sight of such a monument is like continual and stationary music which one hears for one's good as one approaches it.
Behold, ye builders, demigods who made England's Walhalla [Westminster Abbey].
ARGUMENT
Much might be said on both sides.
Where we desire to be informed 'tis good to contest with men above ourselves; but to confirm and establish our opinions, 'tis best to argue with judgments below our own, that the frequent spoils and victories over their reasons may settle in ourselves an esteem and confirmed opinion of our own.
And there began a lang digression
About the lords o' the creation.
He'd undertake to prove, by force
Of argument, a man's no horse.
He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl,
And that a Lord may be an owl,
A calf an Alderman, a goose a Justice,
And rooks, Committee-men or Trustees.
Whatever Sceptic could inquire for,
For every why he had a wherefore.
I've heard old cunning stagers
Say, fools for arguments use wagers.
'Twas blow for blow, disputing inch by inch,
For one would not retreat, nor t'other flinch.
When Bishop Berkeley said, "there was no matter,"
And proved it—'twas no matter what he said.
I am bound to furnish my antagonists with arguments, but not with comprehension.
