Old buildings are not ours

«When we build, let us think that we build for ever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone, let it be such work as our descendents will thank us for. And let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred, because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labour and wrought substance of them, “see, this our fathers did for us?»

«For indeed, the greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, nor in its gold, its glory is in its age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, or stern watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of approval or condemnation which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity. It is in that golden stain of time that we are to look for the real light and colour and preciousness of architecture?»

«Old buildings are not ours. They belong partly to those who built them, and partly to the generations of mankind who are to follow us.»

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John Ruskin