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What would life be like if everybody insisted you must have actually built such-and-such a thing by yourself? I'd be an old man and have nothing to show for the aging.
Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote reflects on the nature of creation and individual contribution in life.

Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe's quote emphasizes the importance of collaboration and learning from others in achieving greatness. He suggests that if everyone were required to have achieved everything independently, we would all end up lacking accomplishments because progress often relies on shared knowledge and collective effort.

Themes

CollaborationCreativityAchievementProgressLearning

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can inspire discussions at a team meeting about the value of collaboration.

More from Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

We should attempt to bring nature, houses, and human beings together in a higher unity.
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Architecture depends on facts, but its real field of activity lies in the realm of the significance.
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The demands of the time for objectivity and functionality must be fulfilled. If that clearly happens, then the buildings of our day will convey the greatness of which the age is capable, and only a fool will maintain that they lack it.
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I think that an industrial process is not like a rubber stamp. Everything has to be put together and, as such, should have its own expression.
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Reinforced concrete buildings are by nature skeletal buildings. No noodles nor armoured turrets. A construction of girders that carry the weight, and walls that carry no weight. That is to say, buildings consisting of skin and bones.
Ludwig Mies Van Der RoheRead
Modern buildings of our time are so huge that one must group them. Often the space between these buildings is as important as the buildings themselves.
Ludwig Mies Van Der RoheRead

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