Louis Kahn Quotes

Questions permeate every aspect of our world and our life. Life is all about questions. If you stop asking, you stop living. ~ Louis Kahn

A room is not a room without natural light. ~ Louis Kahn

Also marvelous in a room is the light that comes through the windows of a room and that belongs to the room. The sun does not realize how beautiful it is until after a room is made. A man's creation, the making of a room, is nothing short of a miracle. Just think, that a man can claim a slice of the sun. ~ Louis Kahn

We are born of light. The seasons are felt through light. We only know the world as it is evoked by light. ~ Louis Kahn

I sense a Threshold: Light to Silence, Silence to Light - an ambiance of inspiration, in which the desire to be, to express, crosses with the possible Light to Silence, Silence to Light crosses in the sanctuary of art. ~ Louis Kahn

I try to create homes, not houses. ~ Louis Kahn

Every building must have ... its own soul. ~ Louis Kahn

The crocodile must want to be a crocodile for reasons of the crocodile ~ Louis Kahn

You can never learn anything that is not a part of yourself. ~ Louis Kahn

Architecture is the reaching out for the truth. ~ Louis Kahn

Just think, that man can claim a slice of the sun. ~ Louis Kahn

Architecture is what nature cannot make.
Architecture is something unnatural but not something made up. ~ Louis Kahn

I just want to make my last demand in reverence to the work of what has been done by architects of the past. what was, has always been. what is, has always been. and what will be, has always been. such is the nature of beginning. ~ Louis Kahn

How precious a book is in light of the offering, in the light of the one who has the privilege of this offering. The library tells you of this offering. ~ Louis Kahn

I Use The Square To Begin My Solutions Because The Square Is A Non-choice, Really. In The Course Of Development, I Search For The Forces That Would Disprove The Square ... ~ Louis Kahn

Even a brick wants to be something.
A brick wants to be something.
It aspires.
Even a common, ordinary brick... wants to be something more than it is.
It wants to be something better than it is. ~ Louis Kahn

The street is a room by agreement. ~ Louis Kahn

How accidental our existences are, really, and how full of influence by circumstance. ~ Louis Kahn

Museum architectural search committees have invariably included the Kimbell in their international scouting tours of exemplary art galleries (a practice pioneered by Velma Kimbell, the founder's widow, in 1964). Those groups no doubt respond to the Kimbell with suitable reverence, but given the buildings they later commissioned, many post-Bilbao museum patrons obviously wanted something quite different. The disparity between Kahn's museums and recent examples of that genre parallels the discrepancy he saw between postwar Modernism and ancient Classicism: "Our stuff looks tinny compared to it." At a time when commercial values are systematically corrupting the museum - one of civilized society's most elevating experiences - the example of Kahn, among the most courageous and successful architectural reformers of all time, seems more relevant and cautionary than ever. ~ Martin Filler

The idea of education has been so tied to schools, universities, and professors that many assume there is no other way, but education is available to anyone within reach of a library, a post office, or even a newsstand. ~ Louis L'Amour

Give me a dollar or I'll spit on you. ~ Louis Sachar

You make the decision: Whom did God punish? ~ Louis Sachar

You deserve so much better" are the words of advice I give you as we enjoy a meal together, hoping you realize I am the better choice of whom I speak of. I don't understand why you even entertain these clowns who don't understand your worth as I sit here loving you until it hurts. Being this close to you is a curse because you only view me as a friend and nothing more, but I figured if I play the part then maybe we could one day be something more. "Friend Zone" from Crucified for 33 Thoughts ~ Jackson Saint-Louis

You are impossibly cruel, Louis,' Harry whispers, turning his body to face him so that they are nose-to-nose, heart-to-heart. Louis' entire body is thrumming with too many emotions and too many desires and too many fears. 'You are cruel for making everything else seem dull. You are cruel for imprisoning me in your very touch - ' - carefully, he brings the pads of his fingers to Louis' cheekbones, swirls delicate patterns onto his flesh - ' - for freeing me with your every word - ' - his fingers slide to graze over Louis' lips - ' - and for bestowing upon me the most painful sense of longing that I've ever had the pleasure to suffer at the hands of. You have shown me color in a world of gray and you are cruel, Louis Tomlinson, for you take the color with you every moment that you're not beside me. You are cruel because I will gladly suffer until the world has returned. ~ Velvetoscar

Victory is won not in miles but in inches. Win a little now, hold your ground, and later, win a little more. ~ Louis L'Amour

I know what it's like to have a bunch of material that's working that you don't care about. You want to die. ~ Louis C.K.

But figure his thought, when Death is now clutching at his own heart-strings, unlooked for, inexorable! Yes, poor Louis, Death has found thee. No palace walls or life-guards, gorgeous tapestries or gilt buckram of stiffest ceremonial could keep him out; but he is here, here at thy very life-breath, and will extinguish it. Thou, whose whole existence hitherto was a chimera and scenic show, at length becomest a reality: sumptuous Versailles bursts asunder, like a dream, into void Immensity; Time is done, and all the scaffolding of Time falls wrecked with hideous clangour round thy soul: the pale Kingdoms yawn open; there must thou enter, naked, all unking'd, and await what is appointed thee! Unhappy man, there as thou turnest, in dull agony, on thy bed of weariness, what a thought is thine! Purgatory and Hell-fire, now all-too possible, in the prospect; in the retrospect,--alas, what thing didst thou do that were not better undone; what mortal didst thou generously help; what sorrow hadst thou mercy on? Do the 'five hundred thousand' ghosts, who sank shamefully on so many battle-fields from Rossbach to Quebec, that thy Harlot might take revenge for an epigram,--crowd round thee in this hour? Thy foul Harem; the curses of mothers, the tears and infamy of daughters? Miserable man! thou 'hast done evil as thou couldst:' thy whole existence seems one hideous abortion and mistake of Nature; the use and meaning of thee not yet known. Wert thou a fabulous Griffin, devouring the works ~ Thomas Carlyle

I was showing early symptoms of becoming a professional baseball man. I was lying to the press. ~ Roger Kahn

Big matches on the big stage are often decided at the back. ~ Oliver Kahn

I don't think that Saddam Hussein is deliberately starving his own people. I would think that a man who gets 99 percent of the people to vote for him in an election and the people love him so much, how would they love a man that is starving them? ~ Louis Farrakhan

SHORTLY AFTER Louis Freeh was sworn in as the fifth director of the FBI on September 1, 1993, he turned in his White House pass. He refused to enter the Oval Office. His reasons were pure and simple. Freeh regarded President Clinton not as commander in chief but as the subject of a criminal case. The ~ Tim Weiner

Sometimes people can learn a lot about each other just by sitting in silence. ~ Louis Sachar

The only thing more pitiful than a middle-aged punk is a white Rastafarian. I did meet one of those once, and he was lonelier than I was. ~ Louis De Bernieres

Where can a man get a bite to eat?" the cowhand asked. "There's several restaurants, but if you can do with beef an' eggs, just set down over yonder and we can fix you up. They're fixin' breakfast for the boss right now," the bartender added, "and I'll just have them put on something extry." When the bartender saw ~ Louis L'Amour

There is a kind of gaping admiration that would fain roll Shakespeare and Bacon into one, to have a bigger thing to gape at; and a class of men who cannot edit one author without disparaging all others. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

My kids used to love math. Now it makes them cry. Thanks standardized testing and common core! ~ Louis C.K.

But you see, our society is still trapped in this binary, black/white logic and that has had some very positive implications for our generation. It's had some very negative ones as well and one of the negative ones is that it creates enormous identity problems for people who have one black ancestor and all white ancestors for example. ~ Henry Louis Gates

A healthy and fully functioning society must allocate its resources among a variety of competing interests, all of which are more or less valid but none of which should take precedence over national security. ~ Herman Kahn

He was wild when he was young; a long while ago to be sure; but in the law of God, there is no statute of limitations. Ay, it must be that; the ghost of some old sin, the cancer of some concealed disgrace: punishment coming, PEDE CLAUDO, years after memory has forgotten and self-love condoned the fault. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Silks" ... "China" ... "Men's Suits" ... but what about canes? ... or crutches?
"Oh, certainly ... yes, yes, of course ... third floor ... ~ Louis Ferdinand Celine

The room was not a room to elevate the soul. Louis XIV, to pick a name at random, would not have liked it, would have found it not sunny enough, and insufficiently full of mirrors. He would have desired someone to pick up the socks, put the records away, and maybe burn the place down. Michelangelo would have been distressed by its proportions, which were neither lofty nor shaped by any noticeable inner harmony or symmetry, other than that all parts of the room were pretty much equally full of old coffee mugs, shoes and brimming ashtrays, most of which were sharing their tasks with each other. The walls were painted in almost precisely that shade of green which Rafaello Sanzio would have bitten off his own right hand at the wrist rather than use, and Hercules, on seeing the room, would probably have returned half an hour later armed with a navigable river. ~ Douglas Adams

It seems all worlds of music - rock, blues, R&B, soul, hip-hop and others - are able to point to impromptu get-togethers as proud moments in their timelines, encounters that were recorded and created music of lasting impression. In the jazz tradition, there are a few, but none that has been revered for as long as Jazz at Massey Hall. ~ Ashley Kahn

Islam has always been a force that dispels tyrants and tyranny, opression and exploitaion. Islam has always been a force that militates for justice. ~ Louis Farrakhan

Any time a man comes along and says 'Indians' or 'Mexicans' or 'Englishmen' he's bound to be wrong. Each man is a person unto himself, and you'll find good, bad, and indifferent wherever you go. ~ Louis L'Amour

Let the old Muse loosen her stays
Or give me a new Muse with stockings and suspenders
And a smile like a cat,
With false eyelashes and finger-nails of carmine
And dressed by Schiaparelli, with a pill-box hat.
...
Give me a houri but houris are too easy,
Give me a nun;
We'll rape the angels off the golden reredos
Before we're done. ~ Louis MacNeice

Without a need to constantly remain attached to ideas and beliefs, the clarity of your formless form recognizes the truth of itself - with nothing to confirm or ever deny. ~ Matthew Kahn

It's - I write the books and let the market find who reads it. I guess a young adult is anywhere from ten to fifteen. ~ Louis Sachar

There are seductions that should be in the Smithsonian Institute, right next to The Spirit of St. Louis. ~ Richard Brautigan

One day I was speeding along at the typewriter, and my daughter - who was a child at the time - asked me, "Daddy, why are you writing so fast?" And I replied, "Because I want to see how the story turns out! ~ Louis L'Amour