47 Quotes by Gutzon Borglum

The purpose of the memorial is to communicate the founding, expansion, preservation, and unification of the United States with colossal statues of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.

Hence, let us place there, carved high, as close to heaven as we can, the words of our leaders, their faces, to show posterity what manner of men they were. Then breathe a prayer that these records will endure until the wind and rain alone shall wear them away.

A piece of sculpture has to be more than a block of wood.

A monument's dimensions should be determined by the importance to civilization of the events commemorated.

Ten thousand years from now our civilization will have passed without leaving a trace. A new race of people will inhabit the earth. They will come to Mount Rushmore and read the record we have made.

America has no monuments to ideas; her monuments are erected to individuals.

Mount Rushmore is eternal. It will stand until the end of time.

That is how America gets her art: Contracting firms get the contract and the honor. Starving artists do the work. The government pays for sculpturing thousands of dollars, of which the sculptor gets a hundred or so.

Renaissance always comes out of depression.