Louis Sullivan quotes - page 2

If with open mind one reads and observes industriously and long; if in so doing one covers a wide field and so covering reflects in terms of realism, he is likely, soon or late, to be brought to a sudden consciousness that Man is an unknown quantity and his existence unsuspected. (Louis Sullivan)

The feudal concept of self-preservation is poisoned at the core by the virulent assumption of master and man, of potentate and slave, of external and internal suppression of the life urge of the only one - of its faith in human sacrifice as a means of salvation.

Louis Sullivan

No complete architecture has yet appeared in the history of the world because men, in this form of art alone, have obstinately sought to express themselves solely in terms either of the head or of the heart.

Louis Sullivan

It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law.

Louis Sullivan

All things in nature have a shape, that is to say, a form, an outward semblance, that tells us what they are, that distinguishes them from ourselves and from each other.

Louis Sullivan

The human mind in all countries having gone to the uttermost limit of its own capacity, flushed with its conquests, haughty after its self-assertion upon emerging from the prior dark age, is now nearing a new phase, a phase inherent in the nature and destiny of things.

Louis Sullivan

The French have a saying: "Time will not consecrate that in which she has been ignored." Bear this admonition ever in mind for it is deeply true. And so, while I say we will neither hasten nor delay, let us not delay. All of which is summed up in the proverbs : :Haste makes waste. Delays are dangerous. He who hesitates is lost. Be bold yet prudent.

Louis Sullivan

The man who designs in this spirit and with the sense of responsibility to the generation he lives in must be no coward, no denier, no bookworm, no dilettante. He must live of his life and for his life in the fullest, most consummate sense.

Louis Sullivan

The greatest man of action is he who is the greatest, and a life-long, dreamer.

Louis Sullivan

A democracy should not let its dreamers perish. They are its life, its guaranty against decay.

Louis Sullivan

Let us then be on our way; for our sun is climbing ever higher. Let us be adoing; lest it set before we know the glory and the import of its light, and we sink again into the twilight and the gloom from which we have come. (Louis Sullivan)

I am of those who believe that gentleness is a greater, surer power than force, and that sympathy is a safer power by far than is intellect.

Louis Sullivan

He who knows naught of dreaming can, likewise, never attain the heights of power and possibility in persuading the mind to act. He who dreams not creates not.

Louis Sullivan

Unceasingly the essence of things is taking shape in the matter of things, and this unspeakable process we call birth and growth.

Louis Sullivan

Verily, there needs a gardener, and many gardens.

Louis Sullivan

Truly we are face to face with great things.

Louis Sullivan

After the long night, and longer twilight, we envisage a dawn-era: an era in which the minor law of tradition shall yield to the greater law of creation, in which the spirit of repression shall fail to repress. Man at last is become emancipated, and now is free to think, to feel, to act free to move toward the goal of the race.

Louis Sullivan

These two happenings seem jointed and interdependent, blended into one like a bubble and its iridescence, and they seem borne along upon a slowly moving air. This air is wonderful past all understanding.

Louis Sullivan

Taste is one of the weaker words in our language. It means a little less than something, a little more than nothing; certainly it conveys no suggestion of potency. It savors of accomplishment, in the fashionable sense, not of power to accomplish in the creative sense.

Louis Sullivan

We must now heed the imperative voice of emotion.

Louis Sullivan

Thus would I concentrate the powers of will. (Louis Sullivan)

Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, or the open apple-blossom, the toiling work-horse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law.

Louis Sullivan

And so shall your garden grow; from the rich soil of the humanities it will rise up and unfold in beauty in the pure air of the spirit.

Louis Sullivan

Is it not Canon Hole who says: "He who would have beautiful roses in his garden, must have beautiful roses in his heart: he must love them well and always?"

Louis Sullivan

The building's identity resided in the ornament.

Louis Sullivan

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Louis Sullivan

Louis Sullivan - Image

Occupation: American Architect
Born: September 3, 1856
Died: April 14, 1924
Quotes count: 54
Wikipedia: Louis Sullivan

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