"I believe in God, only I spell it Nature"
About this Quote
The intent is also reputational. Wright spent a career positioning himself as both artist and prophet, someone whose buildings weren’t just stylish but morally and cosmically “right.” By redefining God as Nature, he claims spiritual authority without submitting to religious authority. The subtext is a subtle rebuke to dogma: stop looking upward for answers; look outward and pay attention to the grain of wood, the path of light, the lay of land.
Context matters. Wright’s “organic architecture” wasn’t a vague love of trees; it was a design ethic insisting that form grows from site, climate, materials, and human use. In an industrializing America of standardized parts and speculative development, “Nature” becomes both muse and critique: a counterweight to mechanized sameness, a reminder that good design is not imposed but negotiated.
Rhetorically, the sentence works because it steals the warmth of belief and redirects it toward observation. It flatters the modern mind (faith without superstition) while still offering what religion often supplies: meaning, order, and awe. That’s Wright’s real architecture here: a bridge between the sacred and the practical, built out of a single, brazen spelling change.
Quote Details
| Topic | God |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Wright, Frank Lloyd. (2026, January 15). I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-believe-in-god-only-i-spell-it-nature-14504/
Chicago Style
Wright, Frank Lloyd. "I believe in God, only I spell it Nature." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-believe-in-god-only-i-spell-it-nature-14504/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I believe in God, only I spell it Nature." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-believe-in-god-only-i-spell-it-nature-14504/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2026.





