The Seven Lamps of Architecture

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Page 131 - And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth : and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.
Page 329 - APHORISM indeed, the greatest glory of a building is s0' not in its stones, nor in its gold. Its glory is in its Age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of approval or condemnation, which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity.
Page 17 - And the king said unto Araunah, Nay; but I will surely buy it of thee at a price : neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the LORD my God of that which doth cost me nothing.
Page 330 - ... that we are to look for the real light, and colour, and preciousness of architecture; and it is not until a building has assumed this character, till it has been entrusted with the fame, and hallowed by the deeds of men, till its walls have been witnesses of suffering, and its pillars rise out of the shadows of death, that its existence, more lasting as it is than that of the natural objects of the world around it, can be gifted with even so much as these possess, of language and of life.
Page 347 - Watch an old building with an anxious care ; guard it as best you may, and at any cost, from every influence of dilapidation. Count its stones as you would jewels of a crown ; set watches about it as if at the gates of a besieged city ; bind it together with iron...
Page 321 - I would have, then, our ordinary dwelling-houses built to last, and built to be lovely ; as rich and full of pleasantness as may be, within and without...
Page 210 - The whole system of railroad travelling is addressed to people who, being in a hurry, are therefore, for the time being, miserable. No one would travel in that manner who could help it, who had time to go leisurely over hills and between hedges, instead of through tunnels and between banks...
Page 2 - A servant with this clause makes drudgery divine; who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, makes that and the action fine.
Page 327 - God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us; and we have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath.
Page 352 - ... how false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call Liberty: most treacherous, indeed, of all phantoms; for the feeblest ray of reason might surely show us, that not only its attainment, but its being, was impossible. There is no such thing in the universe. There can never be. The stars have it not; the earth has it not; the sea has it not; and we men have the mockery and semblance of it only for our heaviest punishment.

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