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

All conventional wisdom has an element of truth to it, but good design requires more than an element of truth - it requires an ensemble of correct assumptions and valid calculations.

From Henry Petroski

Many of the familiar little things that we use every day have typically evolved over a period of time to a state of familiarity. They balance form and function, elegance and economy, success and failure in ways that are not only acceptable, but also admirable.

From Henry Petroski

Successful design is not the achievement of perfection but the minimization and accommodation of imperfection.

From Henry Petroski

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 the worst hurricanes, earthquakes and other calamities, natural and manmade.

From Henry Petroski

The same aspirations to celebrate and uplift the spirit that drove the Egyptians to build the pyramids are still driving us. The things we're doing differ only in magnitude.

From Henry Petroski

Science is about knowing; engineering is about doing.

From Henry Petroski

Case studies of failure should be made a part of the vocabulary of every engineer so that he or she can recall or recite them when something in a new design or design process is suggestive of what went wrong in the case study.

From Henry Petroski

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

From Henry Petroski

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

From Henry Petroski

Henry Petroski

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