Alpern's Architectural Aphorisms





The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.

- G.K. Chesterton



I call architecture frozen music.

- Goethe



We shape our buildings and then our buildings shape us.

- Winston Churchill



Property has its duties as well as its rights.

- Disraeli



Let the street be as wide as the height of the houses.

- Leonardo da Vinci



Six feet of land was all that he needed.

- Leo Tolstoy



They are satisfied with their present lot and environment, and therefore do not want to conquer nature but merely be at home with nature and at peace with their lot.

- Hu Shih



Rome was not built in one day.

- John Heywood



It is a bad plan that admits no modification.

- Publilius Syrus