• If nothing were left of an extinct race but a single button, I would be able to infer, form the shape of that button, how these people dressed, built their houses, how they lived, what was their religion, their art, their mentality.

    Adolf Loos: If nothing were left of an extinct race but a single button, I would be able to infer, form the shape of that button, how these people dressed, built their houses, how they lived, what was their religion, their art, their mentality.
    "Style as Instrument, Style as Person" by Berel Lang, Critical Inquiry Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 715-739, Summer, 1978.