“Noble life demands a noble architecture for noble uses of noble men.”

There is no true understanding of any art without some knowledge of its philosophy. Only then does its meaning come clear.

An expert is a man who has stopped thinking. Why should he think? He is an expert.

An architect’s most useful tools are an eraser at the drafting board and a wrecking ball at the site.

The best thing to do is go as far out as you can get… what you regard as ‘too far’-and when others follow, as they will, move on.

Building becomes architecture only when the mind of man consciously takes it and tries with all his resources to make it beautiful, to put concordance, sympathy with nature, and all that into it. Then you have architecture.

Youth is not an age thing. It’s a quality. Once you’ve had it, you never lose it.

Art for art’s sake is a philosophy of the well-fed.

Each material has its own message.

Space is the breath of art.

Man is a phase of nature, and only as he is related to nature does he matter, does he have any account whatever above the dust.

We have no longer an outside and an inside as two separate things. Now the outside may come inside and the inside may and does go outside. They are of each other. Form and function thus become one in design and execution if the nature of materials and method and purpose are all in unison.

Television is chewing gum for the eyes.

Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities.

Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.

The measure of its nobility and its continuity is its depth of feeling and its sincerity. And if it has that quality, it stands.

Philip Johnson is a highbrow. A highbrow is a man educated beyond his capacity. His house is a box of glass — not shelter. The meaning of the word shelter includes privacy.

Human life is thus only an endless illusion. Men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does when we are gone. Society is based on mutual hypocrisy.

Do not wait for life. Do not long for it. Be aware, always and at every moment, that the miracle is in the here and now.

The first principle of ethical power is Purpose… It is the picture you have of yourself – the kind of person you want to be or the kind of life you want to lead.

People with clenched fists can not shake hands.

I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine.

Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.

Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.

Most people tiptoe their way through life, hoping they make it safely to death.