"All honors are empty and none more than honorary masonry. Because there is nothing that will separate from the work itself. The work is everything, and whatever is learned is learned in the doing...And if it is true that laying stone can teach you reverence of God and tolerance of your neighbor and love for your family it is also true that this knowledge is instilled in you through the work and not through any contemplation of the work."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pgs. 64-65)