In architecture the pride of man, his triumph over gravitation, his will to power, assume a visible form. Architecture is a sort of oratory of power by means of forms.
Socrates and Plato are right: whatever man does he always does well, that is, he does that which seems to him good (useful) according to the degree of his intellect, the particular standard of his reasonableness.
Let them like the Tibetans, chew the cud of their "om mane padme hum" innumerable times, or, as in Benares, count the name of the God Ram-Ram-Ram (etc. with or without charm) on their fingers; or honour Vishnu with his thousand names of invocation, Allah with his ninety-nine; or they may make use of the prayer-wheels and the rosary: the main thing is that they are settled down for a time at this work and are tolerable to look at. This kind of prayer has been invented for the benefit of the pious who have thought and elevations of their own.
It may be that until now there has been no more potent means for beautifying man himself than piety: it can turn man into so much art, surface, play of colors, graciousness that his sight no longer makes one suffer.---
So long as the spectator has to figure out the meaning of this or that person, or the presuppositions of this or that conflict of inclinations and purposes, he cannot become completely absorbed in the activities and sufferings of the chief characters or feel breathless pity and fear.
We operate with nothing but things which do not exist, with lines, planes, bodies, atoms, divisible time, divisible space - how should explanation even be possible when we first make everything into an image, into our own image!