“I don't want to be interesting. I want to be good.”

“It is better to be good than to be original.”

“This is no less true of steel and concrete [than of wood, brick and stone]. We must remember that everything depends on how we use a material, not on the material itself....New materials are not necessarily superior. Each material is only what we make it.”

“The long path from material through function to creative work has only one goal: to create order out of the desperate confusion of our time. We must have order, allocating to each thing it's proper place and giving to each thing is due according to it's nature.”

“We must be as familiar with the functions of our building as with our materials. We must learn what a building can be, what it should be, and also what it must not be...”

“If teaching has any purpose, it is to implant true insight and responsibility. Education must lead us from irresponsible opinion to true responsible judgment. It must lead us from chance and arbitrariness to rational clarity and intellectual order.”

Mies van der Rohe