But I don’t understand. Why do you want me to think that this is great architecture? He pointed to the picture of the Parthenon.That, said the Dean, is the Parthenon.- So it is.- I haven’t the time to waste on silly questions.- All right, then. - Roark got up, he took a long ruler from the desk, he walked to the picture. - Shall I tell you what’s rotten about it?- It’s the Parthenon! - said the Dean.- Yes, God damn it, the Parthenon!The ruler struck the glass over the picture.- Look,- said Roark. - The famous flutings on the famous columns – what are they there for? To hide the joints in wood – when columns were made of wood, only these aren’t, they’re marble. The triglyphs, what are they? Wood. Wooden beams, the way they had to be laid when people began to build wooden shacks. Your Greeks took marble and they made copies of their wooden structures out of it, because others had done it that way. Then your masters of the Renaissance came along and made copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Now here we are, making copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Why?

But I don’t understand. Why do you want me to think that this is great architecture? He pointed to the picture of the Parthenon.That, said the Dean, is the Parthenon.- So it is.- I haven’t the time to waste on silly questions.- All right, then. - Roark got up, he took a long ruler from the desk, he walked to the picture. - Shall I tell you what’s rotten about it?- It’s the Parthenon! - said the Dean.- Yes, God damn it, the Parthenon!The ruler struck the glass over the picture.- Look,- said Roark. - The famous flutings on the famous columns – what are they there for? To hide the joints in wood – when columns were made of wood, only these aren’t, they’re marble. The triglyphs, what are they? Wood. Wooden beams, the way they had to be laid when people began to build wooden shacks. Your Greeks took marble and they made copies of their wooden structures out of it, because others had done it that way. Then your masters of the Renaissance came along and made copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Now here we are, making copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Why?

Ayn Rand
Save QuoteView Quote
Similar Quotes by ayn-rand

To irrational principles, one cannot be loyal. Ideas that are not derived from reality cannot be consistently practiced in reality.--as quoted by Leonard Peikoff in "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand
Save QuoteView Quote

Charity must be voluntary.

Ayn Rand
Save QuoteView Quote

Let us throw away our candles and our torches. Let us flood the cities with light. Let us bring a new light to men! -Equality 7-2521

Ayn Rand
Save QuoteView Quote

It [ballet] projects a fragile kind of strength and a certain inflexible precision.

Ayn Rand
Save QuoteView Quote

She [Ayn Rand] had to declare that....altruism was despicable, that only self-interest is good and noble. (About Ayn Rand)

William F. Buckley Jr.
Save QuoteView Quote

I have yet to see a genius or a hero who, if stuck with a burning match, would feel less pain than his undistinguished average brother.

Ayn Rand
Save QuoteView Quote

Only a man of integrity can possess the virtue of honesty, since only the faking of one’s consciousness can permit the faking of existence.

Ayn Rand, The Journals of Ayn Rand
Save QuoteView Quote

Politically, the goal of today’s dominant trendis statism. Philosophically, the goal is theobliteration of reason;psychologically, it is theerosion of ambition.

Ayn Rand, Letters of Ayn Rand
Save QuoteView Quote

My greatest personal mistake is ever to allow a word or moment that “doesn’t count,” i.e., that I do not refer to my own basic principles. Every word, every action, every moment counts. (This is the pattern on which everybody makes mistakes [or] becomes irrational — not relating their one action or one conviction to another.

Ayn Rand, The Journals of Ayn Rand
Save QuoteView Quote

But I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years of transition, long ago, that men did not see whither they were going, and went on, in blindness and cowardice, to their fate. I wonder, for it is hard for me to conceive how men who knew the word "I," could give it up and not know what they lost. But such has been the story, for I have lived in the City of the damned, and I know what horror men permitted to be brought upon them.

Ayn Rand, Anthem
Save QuoteView Quote
Related Topics to ayn-rand Quotes