I love art, and I love history, but it is living art and living history that I love. It is in the interest of living art and living history that I oppose so-called restoration. What history can there be in a building bedaubed with ornament, which cannot at the best be anything but a hopeless and lifeless imitation of the hope and vigor of the earlier world?

So with this Earthly Paradise it is, If ye will read aright, and pardon me, Who strive to build a shadowy isle of bliss Midmost the beating of the steely sea.

There is no excuse for doing anything which is not strikingly beautiful.

Forgetfulness of grief I yet may gain;In some wise may come ending to my pain;It may be yet the Gods will have me glad!Yet, Love, I would that thee and pain I had!

I do not want art for a few any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few.

Architecture would lead us to all the arts, as it did with earlier mean: but if we despise it and take no note of how we are housed, the other arts will have a hard time of it indeed.

Don't think too much of style.