Henry Ward Beecher Quotes

If something is functional, you no longer think about it. I care about how meaningful things are.

I don't think architecture should be considered as an art form in the first instance. Whenever I say that, it makes people really angry. But this is a very political profession in the Grecian sense. I believe there have to be reasons for every building, and that the ideas should not be self-referential.

I think place and time for me is often a matter of convenience, something I can use to another end rather than something I'm trying to define because it's somehow fascinating to me in itself. It's more what the place can do for the larger goals I have for the work.

We need to rediscover the essence of the meaning of 'the use.' Architecture is, above all, here for a better living. Every gesture, every shape must be justified by various reasons that would reinforce their reason to be, their use, and will give more sense to their beauty.

'Form follows function' comes with so much baggage. It's a worthless phrase because you'll never take it for what it means.

The older I get, the more I like the idea of utilitarianism. I think that I'm not a trend-driven person. I really believe in keeping your canvas very basic and sort of adding the accouterments from there. I look at creating intrigue with outfits through accessories.

It's a survival thing. I don't do anything to be artistic or just because I like it.

Everybody gets excited about technology, but it doesn't interest me in the least. I'm only interested in it if it makes my job easier or cheaper. They're tools.

One must be able to say at all times--instead of points, straight lines, and planes--tables, chairs, and beer mugs

Reason is a bee, and exists only on what it makes; his usefulness takes the place of beauty.

It is a juvenile notion that a society needs a lofty purpose and a shining vision to achieve much. Both in the market place and on the battlefield men who set their hearts on toys have often displayed unequal initiative and drive. And one must be ignorant of the creative process to look for a close correspondence between motive and achievement in the world of thought and imagination.

All the good things of the world are no further good to us than as they are of use; and of all we may heap up we enjoy only as much as we can use, and no more.

Beauty is assailed from two directions - by the cult of ugliness in the arts, and by the cult of utility in everyday life.

Use it, Rosie, that's what it's there for.

It’s time for architecture to do things again, not just represent things.

Everything in this business makes sense, because it serves a real purpose, fills a need that's a part of living. Even a single nail, like this one, fulfills a function. Drive it into a crucial place and you can depend on it to do a job, keep on doing it for a hundred years to come. Long after we're dead and gone, both of us.

I feel very accomplished. It makes me feel great to know that I am impacting lives and of service to the world.

Etre un homme utile m'a paru toujours quelque chose de bien hideux. To be useful has always seemed to me quite hideous.

The most wonderful thing in the world is somebody who knows who they are and knows where they're going and knows what they were created to do

One's task is not to turn the world upside down, but to do what is necessary at the given place and with a due consideration of reality.

I am no poet. I do not love words for the sake of words. I love words for what they can accomplish. Similarly, I am no arithmetician. Numbers that speak only of numbers are of little interest to me.

To rid the world of aggression and contention is the purpose of Aikido