Why is one man richer than another? Because he is more industrious, more persevering and more sagacious.

No architecture is so haughty as that which is simple.

We are, after all, only trustees of the wealth we possess. Without the community and its resources... there would be little wealth for anyone.

The higher a man stands, the more the word vulgar becomes unintelligible to him.

The noble grotesque involves the true appreciation of beauty.

If the design of the building be originally bad, the only virtue it can ever possess will be signs of antiquity.

Superstition, in all times and among all nations, is the fear of a spirit whose passions are those of a man, whose acts are the acts of a man; who is present in some places, not in others; who makes no places holy and not others; who is kind to one person, unkind to another; who is pleased or angry according to the degree of attention you pay him, or praise you refuse to him; who is hostile generally to human pleasure, but may be bribed by sacrifice of a part of that pleasure into permitting the rest. This, whatever form of faith it colors, is the essence of superstition.