If I were to spit upon the revered black stone in Mecca during the height of the annual pilgrimage, I would be slain on the spot by enraged pilgrims for daring to profane the sacred symbol of Islam. An Israeli soldier's bullet in the back would be my deserved fate for scrawling graffiti upon the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.… Life would not be pleasant for me if I took a hammer to the Pietàs in the Vatican, for we humans hold our creations dear, and we deal harshly with those who fail to share our reverence for old stone walls, meteorites, marble statues, icons, and architecture.… Yet each and every day, humans enter the most sacred and reverential cathedrals of the natural world—the redwood forests of northern California or the rain forests of Amazonia—and each and every day we profanely rape these great mysteries with chain saws and bulldozers.

About Paul Watson

Paul Franklin Watson (born December 2, 1950) is a Canadian-American environmental, conservation and animal rights activist, who founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF), two anti-poaching and direct action groups focused on marine conservation activism. The tactics used by Sea Shepherd have attracted opposition, with...

More quotations tagged with “architecture”

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

—Elvis Costello

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If a building becomes architecture, then it is art.

—Arne Jacobsen

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Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral.

—Frank Lloyd Wright

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Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space.

—Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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I installed a skylight in my apartment… the people who live above me are furious!

—Steven Wright

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History

14 Mar 2015 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

If I were to spit upon the revered black stone in Mecca during the height of the annual pilgrimage, I would be slain on the spot by enraged pilgrims for daring to profane the sacred symbol of Islam. An Israeli soldier's bullet in the back would be my deserved fate for scrawling graffiti upon the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. . . . Life would not be pleasant for me if I took a hammer to the Pietàs in the Vatican, for we humans hold our creations dear, and we deal harshly with those who fail to share our reverence for old stone walls, meteorites, marble statues, icons, and architecture. . . . Yet each and every day, humans enter the most sacred and reverential cathedrals of the natural world — the redwood forests of northern California or the rain forests of Amazonia — and each and every day we profanely rape these great mysteries with chain saws and bulldozers.