Howard Roark

An architect should be a good writer, a skillful draftsman, versed in geometry and optics, expert at figures, acquainted with history, informed on the principles of natural and moral philosophy, somewhat of a musician, not ignorant of the law and of physics, nor of the motions, laws, and relations to each other, of the heavenly bodies. … Those unto whom nature has been so bountiful that they are at once geometricians, astronomers, musicians, and skilled in many other arts, go beyond what is required of the architect, and may be properly called polymaths, in the extended sense of that word. Men so gifted, discriminate acutely, and are rare. … Since few men are thus gifted, an architect who must strive to be generally well informed in all the arts cannot hope to excel in each. Therefore, I beseech you, O Caesar, and those who read this my work, to pardon and overlook grammatical errors; for I write neither as an accomplished philosopher, an eloquent rhetorician, nor an expert grammarian, but as an architect.