Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

A man who could build a church, as one may say, by squinting at a
sheet of paper.

A man who could build a church, as one may say, by squinting at a
sheet of paper.

Architecture, of all the arts, is the one which acts the most slowly, but the most surely, on the soul

Architecture, of all the arts, is the one which acts the most slowly, but the most surely, on the soul

Architecture is frozen music.
[Ger., Die Backunst ist eine erstarrte Musik.]

Architecture is frozen music.
[Ger., Die Backunst ist eine erstarrte Musik.]

Grandeur . . . consists in form, and not in size: and to the eye
of the philosopher, the read more

Grandeur . . . consists in form, and not in size: and to the eye
of the philosopher, the curve drawn on a paper two inches long,
is just as magnificent, just as symbolic of divine mysteries and
melodies, as when embodied in the span of some cathedral roof.

Architecture is a social act and the material theater of human activity.

Architecture is a social act and the material theater of human activity.

Anon, out of the earth a fabric huge
Rose, like an exhalation.

Anon, out of the earth a fabric huge
Rose, like an exhalation.

The hand that rounded Peter's dome
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in a sad read more

The hand that rounded Peter's dome
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew;
The conscious stone to beauty grew.

When I lately stood with a friend before [the cathedral of]
Amiens, . . . he asked me how read more

When I lately stood with a friend before [the cathedral of]
Amiens, . . . he asked me how it happens that we can no longer
build such piles? I replied: "Dear Alphonse, men in those days
had convictions (Ueberzeugungen), we moderns have opinions
(Meinungen) and it requires something more than an opinion to
build a Gothic cathedral.