“Christopher Wren, the leading architect of London's reconstruction after the great fire of 1666, lies buried beneath the floor of his most famous building, St. Paul's cathedral. No elaborate sarcophagus adorns the site. Instead, we find only the famous epitaph written by his son and now inscribed into the floor: “si monumentum requiris, circumspice”—if you are searching for his monument, look around. A tad grandiose, perhaps, but I have never read a finer testimony to the central importance—one might even say sacredness — of actual places, rather than replicas, symbols, or other forms of vicarious resemblance.”
"A Tale of Two Work Sites", p. 251
The Lying Stones of Marrakech (2001)
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Stephen Jay Gould 274
American evolutionary biologist 1941–2002Related quotes

From interview with Anshul Chaturvedi

Time Magazine, December 4, 1978, Messiah from the Midwest http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912250-3,00.html

“You look at the floor and see the floor. I look at the floor and see molecules.”
As quoted by [Agony and Excesses of Stardom, Doug, Hill, Jeff, Weingrad, San Francisco Chronicle, March 4, 1986, 16]

“The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.”
New York Times Magazine (4 October 1953) Sometimes paraphrased: "A doctor can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his clients to plant vines."

Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 38
Context: St. Paul earned his living most of the time by hard labor and constantly reminded his converts that they must not defraud each other, but love one another and work with their own hands. The same rule of life is applied by the laws governing the early monastic orders.