Architecture is involved with the world, but at the same time it has a certain autonomy. This autonomy cannot be explained in terms of traditional logic because the most interesting parts of the work are non-verbal. They operate within the terms of the work, like any art.

Worldly institutions fail because they require power and gold to operate. Power and gold attract wicked and greedy people. Wicked and greedy people are corrupters and betrayers. Therefore, worldly institutions become corrupt and betrayed.

Personally, I never admired communists because they operate on the theory that human beings are nice people.

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.

If a government commission had worked on the horse, you would have the first horse that could operate its knee joint in both directions. The trouble is it couldn’t have stood up.

We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.

Talent and genius operate outside the rules, and theory conflicts with practice.

Savage peoples are ruled by passion, civilized peoples by the mind. The difference lies not in the respective natures of savagery and civilization, but in their attendant circumstances, institutions, and so forth. The difference, therefore, does not operate in every sense, but it does in most of them. Even the most civilized peoples, in short, can be fired with passionate hatred for each other.

Lenience will operate with greater force, in some instances, than rigor. It is therefore my first wish to have all of my conduct distinguished by it.

I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that’s how I operate my life.

I always wanted to operate at the highest altitude, just in terms of hip-hop and the music

Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of the divine nature.

I don’t deny the importance of genetics. However, the fact that I might be altruistic isn’t because I have a gene for altruism; the fact that I do something for my children at some cost to myself comes from a history that has operated on me.