"Because they are so humbled by their creations,……" — Henry Petroski
"Because they are so humbled by their creations, engineers are naturally conservative in their expectations of technology. They know that the perfect system is the stuff of science fiction, not of engineering fact, and so everything must be treated with respect."
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Henry Petroski
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41 Quotes by Henry Petroski
Henry Petroski has 41 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is its continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made…
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Engineers are not superhuman. They make mistakes in their assumptions, in their calculations, in their conclusions. That they make mistakes…
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Any design, whether its for a ship or an airplane, must be done in anticipation of potential failures.
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I emphasize that virtually every engineering calculation is ultimately a failure calculation, because without a failure criterion against which to…
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All conventional wisdom has an element of truth to it, but good design requires more than an element of truth…
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What is commonly overlooked in using the computer is the fact that the central goal of design is still to…
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A failed structure provides a counterexample to a hypothesis and shows us incontrovertibly what cannot be done, while a structure…
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Case studies of failure should be made a part of the vocabulary of every engineer so that he or she…
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There's so much written about the Titanic, and it's hard to separate what's fact and what's fiction. My understanding is…
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No one wants to learn from mistakes, but we cannot learn enough from successes to go beyond the state of…
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The paradox is that when we model future designs on past successes, we are inviting failure down the line; when…
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I have always been fascinated by the way things work and how they came to take the form that they…
See all 41 quotes by Henry Petroski »
More Conservative Quotes
This quote is filed under Conservative Quotes,
one of 1,208 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
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The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.
— Hannah Arendt
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We need a strong, bold constitutional conservative who won't back down and who will fight for the values we believe…
— Michele Bachmann
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The General Strike has taught the working class more in four days than years of talking could have done.
— Arthur Balfour
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Our 'neoconservatives' are neither new nor conservative, but old as Bablyon and evil as Hell.
— Edward Abbey
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I actually get more conservative when I'm in Vegas.
— Roseanne Barr
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A government of laws, and not of men.
— John Adams
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Good for you, you have a heart, you can be a liberal. Now, couple your heart with your brain, and…
— Glenn Beck
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What does it mean to be a conservative? I don't even know anymore. I know what it means to me.…
— Glenn Beck
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I am a conservative, but I am not a zombie.
— Glenn Beck
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No one is guaranteed happiness. You can pursue it, but if you happen to find success along the way on…
— Glenn Beck
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When a nation's young men are conservative, its funeral bell is already rung.
— Henry Ward Beecher
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Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them…
— Ambrose Bierce
See all 1,208 Conservative Quotes »