Skip to content

An architect, to be a true exponent of his time, must possess first, last and always the sympathy, the intuition of a poet … this is the one real, vital principle that survives through all places and all times.

— Louis Sullivan Emotional Architecture as Compared to Intellectual (1894)

Another quote →

Topics

Architecture

More quotes by Louis Sullivan

Verily, there needs a gardener, and many gardens.

Kindergarten Chats (1918)

What are books but folly, and what is an education but an arrant hypocrisy, and what is art but a curse when they touch not the heart and impel it not to action?

Kindergarten Chats (1918)

We must now heed the imperative voice of emotion.

The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered (1896)

Truly we are face to face with great things.

Education (1902)

To teach is to touch the heart and impel it to action.

All Louis Sullivan quotes →

You may also like

The civil engineer is the real 19th century architect.

William Burges

Architects and engineers are among the most fortunate of men since they build their own monuments with public consent, public approval and often public money.

John Prebble

The sight of such a monument is like continual and stationary music, which one hears for one's good as one approaches it.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël Corinne (1807)

Rich windows that exclude the light,
And passages that lead to nothing.

Thomas Gray

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Louis Sullivan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.