A truly great architecture grew up in Mexico after the time of the Conquest of Cortez. It was probably not on account of any lack desire on the part of the early Fathers that architecture was not transplanted to California in the days of the Missions. It is apparent their simple crude touches of ornament, that Padres were trying to simulate the richness of the churches of Mexico City and Puebla-they were pitifully limited, however, not only in wealth but also in the skill of the workmen had at hand.
Clarence SteinRelated topics
account architecture city conquest crude desire early great lack limited simple skill trying wealth days MexicoRelated quotes
England was nothing, compared to continental nations until she had become commercial...until about the middle of the last century, when a number of ingenious and inventive men, without apparent relation to each other, arose in various parts of the kingdom, succeeded in giving an immense impulse to all the branches of the national industry; the result of which has been a harvest of wealth and prosperity, perhaps without a parallel in the history of the world.
Samuel Smiles
Now, if the principle of toleration were once admitted into classical education --if it were admitted that the great object is to read and enjoy a language, and the stress of the teaching were placed on the few things absolutely essential to this result, if the tortoise were allowed time to creep, and the bird permitted to fly, and the fish to swim, towards the enchanted and divine sources of Helicon --all might in their own way arrive there, and rejoice in its flowers, its beauty, and its coolness.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
The nude gains its enduring value from the fact that it reconciles several contrary states. It takes the most sensual and immediately interesting object, the human body, and puts it out of reach of time and desire; it takes the most purely rational concept of which mankind is capable, mathematical order, and makes it a delight to the senses; and it takes the vague fears of the unknown and sweetens them by showing that the gods are like men and may be worshiped for their life-giving beauty rather than their death-dealing powers.
Kenneth Clark
Of this voyage, I observe,' says the Admiral, 'that it has miraculously been shown, as may be understood by this writing, by the many signal miracles that He has shown on the voyage, and for me, who for so great a time was in the court of Your Highnesses with the opposition and against the opinion of so many high personages of your household, who were all against me, alleging this undertaking to be folly, which I hope in Our Lord will be to the greater glory of Christianity, which to some slight extent already has happened.
Christopher Columbus
Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray, to not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field that, of course, they are many in number or that, after all, they are other than the little, shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.
Edmund Burke