Philip Johnson Quotes

Museums are good things, places to look and absorb and learn.

Even in the centuries which appear to us to be the most monstrous and foolish, the immortal appetite for beauty has always found satisfaction.

The beauty one can find in art is one of the pitifully few real and lasting products of human endeavour. The beauty endures. A work of art lives...through the generations and centuries.

The artistic part of us all - I think that the easiest way to appreciate this - is through architecture. Architecture is very impressive; the beauty of buildings, temples.

We've got to map all of our ancient history before it's gone because, let's face it, if we don't have a common heritage to share, something to get excited about, then what are we living for?

What makes people the world over stand in line for Van Gogh is not that they will see beautiful pictures but that in an indefinable way they will come away feeling better human beings. And that is exactly what Van Gogh hoped for.

Life deprived of beauty is not worthy of being called human.

Art is the signature of civilizations.

I will say that art may well be the only thing that lasts, so I guess it's worth trying.

Art is exalted above religion and race. Not a single solitary soul these days believes in the religions of the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Greeks... Only their art, whenever it was beautiful, stands proud and exalted, rising above all time.

Monuments are for the living, not the dead.

That Moorish architecture is all over the place, of course. It affects me everywhere I see it, as it does so many people. But Brand Library was a special place to me, and I know I've paid homage to it many times in my drawings.

It is very necessary to have markers of beauty left in a world seemingly bent on making the most evil ugliness.

I really don’t make history; I preserve it.

I believe that the arts of a culture are terribly important and yet almost indefensible.

History is the ship carrying living memories to the future.

Our roots are clinging, we shouldn't knock down so many old 'buildings.'

When I see beautiful clothes, I want to keep them, preserve them... Clothes, like architecture and art, reflect an era.

And I add my own love to the history of people who have loved beautiful things, and looked out for them, and pulled them from the fire, and sought them when they were lost, and tried to preserve them and save them while passing them along literally from hand to hand, singing out brilliantly from the wreck of time to the next generation of lovers, and the next.

The Beauty which old Greece or RomeSung, painted, wrought, lies close at home.

In Lagos there's a really strong case to resurrect strong parts. Embedded in all of it are some amazing pieces of planning, amazing pieces of engineering and interaction. For instance, the campus of Lagos University is stunningly beautiful, efficient and generous, and that needs to be recognised and preserved.

I cannot let a place that is so important to so many people fade away. Something that is wonder and comfort and mystery all together that they have nowhere else. If you had that, wouldn't you want to keep it?

Leningrad ... is a city with the gift of timelessness.

This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. It is beauty, like truth, which brings joy to the heart of man and is that precious fruit which resists the year and tear of time, which unites generations and makes them share things in admiration.

A very big part of the life of a photograph is the afterlife.