Education (1902)
Context: I am not of those who believe in lackadaisical methods. On the contrary, I advocate a vigorous, thorough, exact mental training which shall fit the mind to expand upon and grasp large things and yet properly to perceive in their just relation the significance of small ones to discriminate accurately as to quantity and quality and thus to develop individual judgment, capacity and independence.
But at the same time I am of those who believe that gentleness is a greater, surer power than force, and that sympathy is a safer power by far than is intellect. Therefore would I train the individual sympathies as carefully in all their delicate warmth and tenuity as I would develop the mind in alertness, poise and security.
Nor am I of those who despise dreamers. For the world would be at the level of zero were it not for its dreamers gone and of today. He who dreamed of democracy, far back in a world of absolutism, was indeed heroic, and we of today awaken to the wonder of his dream.
Louis Sullivan: Power
Louis Sullivan was American architect. Explore interesting quotes on power.
Education (1902)
Context: He who knows naught of dreaming can, likewise, never attain the heights of power and possibility in persuading the mind to act.
He who dreams not creates not.
For vapor must arise in the air before the rain can fall.
The greatest man of action is he who is the greatest, and a life-long, dreamer. For in him the dreamer is fortified against destruction by a far-seeing eye, a virile mind, a strong will, a robust courage.
And so has perished the kindly dreamer — on the cross or in the garret.
A democracy should not let its dreamers perish. They are its life, its guaranty against decay.
Thus would I expand the sympathies of youth.
Thus would I liberate and discipline all the constructive faculties of the mind and encourage true insight, true expression, real individuality.
Thus would I concentrate the powers of will.
Thus would I shape character.
Thus would I make good citizens.
And thus would I lay the foundations for a generation of real architects — real, because true, men, and dreamers in action.
Source: Kindergarten Chats (1918), Ch. 10 : A Roman Temple
Context: Taste is one of the weaker words in our language. It means a little less than something, a little more than nothing; certainly it conveys no suggestion of potency. It savors of accomplishment, in the fashionable sense, not of power to accomplish in the creative sense. It expresses a familiarity with what is au courant among persons of so-called culture, of so-called good form. It is essentially a second-hand word, and can have no place in the working vocabulary of those who demand thought and action at first hand. To say that a thing is tasty or tasteful is, practically, to say nothing at all.
“Thus would I concentrate the powers of will.”
Education (1902)
Context: He who knows naught of dreaming can, likewise, never attain the heights of power and possibility in persuading the mind to act.
He who dreams not creates not.
For vapor must arise in the air before the rain can fall.
The greatest man of action is he who is the greatest, and a life-long, dreamer. For in him the dreamer is fortified against destruction by a far-seeing eye, a virile mind, a strong will, a robust courage.
And so has perished the kindly dreamer — on the cross or in the garret.
A democracy should not let its dreamers perish. They are its life, its guaranty against decay.
Thus would I expand the sympathies of youth.
Thus would I liberate and discipline all the constructive faculties of the mind and encourage true insight, true expression, real individuality.
Thus would I concentrate the powers of will.
Thus would I shape character.
Thus would I make good citizens.
And thus would I lay the foundations for a generation of real architects — real, because true, men, and dreamers in action.
Source: Kindergarten Chats (1918), Ch. 10 : A Roman Temple
Emotional Architecture as Compared to Intellectual (1894)