The greatest products of architecture are less the works of individuals than of society; rather the offspring of a nation's effort, than the inspired flash of a man of genius.
It quite often happens that the old man is subject to the delusion of a great moral renewal and rebirth, and from this experience he passes judgments on the work and course of his life, as if he had only now become clear-sighted; and yet the inspiration behind this feeling of well-being and these confident judgements is not wisdom, but weariness .
Tossed into the Secaucus graveyard are about 25 centuries of classical culture and the standards of style, elegance and grandeur that it gave to the dreams and constructions of Western man. That turns the Jersey wasteland into a pretty classy dump.
Poverty and slavery are thus only two forms ofthe same thing, the essence of which is that a man's energies are expended for the most part not on his own behalf but on that of others.
I have exposed myself and am not ashamed to stand there naked. "Shame" is what we call the monster that attached itself to men when they aspired beyond the animals.