Henry Petroski Quotes

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You can almost say that a design error is a human error because, after all, it's we humans who do the designing.

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by things large and small. I wanted to know what made my watch tick, my radio play, and my house stand. I wanted to know who invented the bottle...

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My first book, 'To Engineer Is Human,' was prompted by nonengineer friends asking me why so many technological accidents and failures were occurring. If engineers knew what they were doing, why did bridges and buildings fall down? It was a...

As long as there are things to wonder about, there are stories to be written about them. That makes me happy, because writing about things seems to be my thing.

An over-reliance on past successes is a sure blueprint for future failures.

Successful engineering is all about understanding how things break or fail.

The definition of 'safe' is not strictly an engineering term; it's a societal term. Does it mean absolutely no loss of life? Does it mean absolutely no contamination with radiation? What exactly does 'safe' mean?

Engineering is achieving function while avoiding failure.

If I could go upstairs and write every day, I would be happy. I don't need recreation.

It has been said, by engineers themselves, that given enough money, they can accomplish virtually anything: send men to the moon, dig a tunnel under the English Channel. There's no reason they couldn't likewise devise ways to protect infrastructure from...

As engineers, we were going to be in a position to change the world - not just study it.

Although engineers want always to make everything better, they cannot make anything perfect. This basic characteristic flaw of the products of the profession's practitioners is what drives change and makes achievement a process rather than simply a goal.

Relying on nothing but scientific knowledge to produce an engineering solution is to invite frustration at best and failure at worst.

It is really want, rather than need, that drives the process of technological evolution.

Luxury, not necessity, is the mother of invention. Every artifact is somewhat wanting in its function, and that is what drives its evolution.

No design, no matter how common or seemingly insignificant, is without its adamant critics as well as its ardent admirers.

Because every design must satisfy competing objectives, there necessarily has to be compromise among, if not the complete exclusion of, some of those objectives, in order to meet what are considered the more important of them.

Design is nothing if not decision making.

The space shuttle was designed, at least in part, to broaden our knowledge of the universe. To scientists, the vehicle was a tool; to engineers, it was their creation.

A common misconception about how things such as space shuttles come to be is that engineers simply apply the theories and equations of science. But this cannot be done until the new thing-to-be is conceived in the engineer's mind's eye....

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