We seem incapable of looking at buildings or pieces of furniture without tying them to the historical and personal circumstances of our viewing; as a result, architectural and decorative styles become, for us, emotional souvenirs of the moments and settings in which we came across them.

Our designs go wrong because our feelings of contentment are woven from fine and unexpected filaments.

...Because beauty is typically the result of a few qualities working in concert, it can take more to guarantee the appeal of a bridge or a house than strength alone. (p 205)

Any object of design will give off an impression of the psychological and moral attitudes it supports.

We are marginally—but crucially—less likely to question the soundness of an article about a rationale for going to war when it comes presented beneath the neo-Gothic Cheltenham typeface of the New York Times, or to probe the coherence of a thesis defending a presidential budget when it is laid out in the sober yet sensuous columns of Le Monde's Fenway font. Brands alone dissuade us from picking sceptically at their underlying content.