"When I lately stood with a friend before [the cathedral of] Amiens, . . . he asked me how it happens that we can no longer build such piles? I replied: 'Dear Alphonse, men in those days had convictions (Ueberzeugungen), we moderns have opinions (Meinungen) and it requires something more than an opinion to build a Gothic cathedral.'" - Heinrich Heine, Confidential Letters to August Lewald on the French Stage (letter 9), translated by C.G. Leland