Henry Petroski quote: "Failure is central to engineering. Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation. Successful engineering is all about understanding how things break or fail."

I emphasize that virtually every engineering calculation is ultimately a failure calculation, becaus...
HENRY PETROSKI

No design, no matter how common or seemingly insignificant, is without its adamant critics as well a...
HENRY PETROSKI

Many of the familiar little things that we use every day have typically evolved over a period of tim...
HENRY PETROSKI

It seems to be a law of design that for every advantage introduced through redesign, there is an acc...
HENRY PETROSKI

Successful design is not the achievement of perfection but the minimization and accommodation of imp...
HENRY PETROSKI

The definition of 'safe' is not strictly an engineering term; it's a societal term. Does...
HENRY PETROSKI

Typically, highway bridges have about 50 years. But over in England, they have iron bridges approach...
HENRY PETROSKI

My first book, 'To Engineer Is Human,' was prompted by nonengineer friends asking me why so ...
HENRY PETROSKI

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

Any design, whether it's for a ship or an airplane, must be done in anticipation of potential fa...
HENRY PETROSKI

The space shuttle was designed, at least in part, to broaden our knowledge of the universe. To scien...
HENRY PETROSKI

Relying on nothing but scientific knowledge to produce an engineering solution is to invite frustrat...
HENRY PETROSKI

You can almost say that a design error is a human error because, after all, it's we humans who d...
HENRY PETROSKI

We can't simply blame the engineers when things go wrong because, no matter how well they plan, ...
HENRY PETROSKI

All conventional wisdom has an element of truth to it, but good design requires more than an element...
HENRY PETROSKI

Because they are so humbled by their creations, engineers are naturally conservative in their expect...
HENRY PETROSKI

Companies selling a product play down its vulnerability and emphasize its robustness. But only after...
HENRY PETROSKI

It has been said, by engineers themselves, that given enough money, they can accomplish virtually an...
HENRY PETROSKI

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by things large and small. I wanted to know wh...
HENRY PETROSKI

Everything we do is designed, whether we're producing a magazine, a website, or a bridge. Design...
HENRY PETROSKI

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

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

Science is about knowing; engineering is about doing.
HENRY PETROSKI

I was always told that I was good in mathematics, and I guess my grades and standardized test scores...
HENRY PETROSKI

I employ case studies of failure into my courses, emphasizing that they teach us much more than stud...
HENRY PETROSKI

We call the fates of the Titanic and the Concordia - as well as those of the space shuttles Challeng...
HENRY PETROSKI

Engineering is achieving function while avoiding failure.
HENRY PETROSKI

The same aspirations to celebrate and uplift the spirit that drove the Egyptians to build the pyrami...
HENRY PETROSKI

Betting on the success of innovative technologies in the marketplace can carry all the uncertainty a...
HENRY PETROSKI

Design is nothing if not decision making.
HENRY PETROSKI

Too much redesign has to do more with fad and fashion than with fitness and function. It is change f...
HENRY PETROSKI

There's so much written about the Titanic, and it's hard to separate what's fact and wha...
HENRY PETROSKI

So it's ironic that he was only a one-term president, largely because of the Great Depression, and p...
HENRY PETROSKI

Many new technologies come with a promise to change the world, but the world refuses to cooperate.
HENRY PETROSKI

Indeed, an engineer designing a structure is not unlike an artist painting one. Both start with noth...
HENRY PETROSKI

Case studies of failure should be made a part of the vocabulary of every engineer so that he or she ...
HENRY PETROSKI

It shows that if we forget the history of the technology we're working in, we can be taken by surpri...
HENRY PETROSKI

Surveying and engineering were quite close back then.
HENRY PETROSKI

I would rather be right than President.
HENRY CLAY

There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.
O. HENRY

I see America spreading disaster. I see America as a black curse upon the world. I see a long night ...
HENRY MILLER

We do not talk - we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of ne...
HENRY MILLER

It is true I had been successful on a small scale in overcoming one of the main difficulties in the ...
HENRY BESSEMER

The people who influence you are the people who believe in you.
HENRY DRUMMOND

The ecstatic insanity of romantic pursuit can be so enhanced by music that entire romantic conquests...
HENRY ROLLINS

Oklahomans value our children and our seniors. Oklahomans value traditions of faith. Oklahomans valu...
BRAD HENRY

We must give Oklahoma families the opportunity to thrive and prosper. We must give all Oklahomans th...
BRAD HENRY

The worst thing we can do is to do nothing.
BRAD HENRY

In charting our course to the future, we are mindful of our path from the past.
BRAD HENRY

The only thing holding us back is ourselves.
BRAD HENRY

The status quo is simply unacceptable.
BRAD HENRY

Reading builds the educated and informed electorate so vital to our democracy.
BRAD HENRY

For only by nurturing the minds and strengthening the values of our children can we give them an opp...
BRAD HENRY

It is a paradox that far too few Americans participate in the wonderful ritual of democracy that we ...
BRAD HENRY

It is only through raising expectations and striving for excellence that our children can reach thei...
BRAD HENRY

Resilience is woven deeply into the fabric of Oklahoma. Throw us an obstacle, and we grow stronger.
BRAD HENRY

No other investment yields as great a return as the investment in education. An educated workforce i...
BRAD HENRY

Education is not solely about earning a great living. It means living a great life.
BRAD HENRY

What unites Oklahomans today is what has always united us: Our unshakable faith. Our love of family ...
BRAD HENRY

A fundamental duty of government is to protect its people.
BRAD HENRY

There is too much at stake for us to surrender to the politics of polarization.
BRAD HENRY

No matter where you stand politically - even if you're unsure of what your political ideology is...
BRAD HENRY

One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.
HENRY MILLER

The Bible is worth all the other books which have ever been printed.
PATRICK HENRY

I don't believe in fate or destiny. I believe in various degrees of hatred, paranoia, and abando...
HENRY ROLLINS

Sculpture is an art of the open air. Daylight, sunlight, is necessary to it, and for me, its best se...
HENRY MOORE

My version of Superman is essentially of a guy who has spent his whole life alone.
HENRY CAVILL

No one should have to choose between medicine and other necessities. No one should have to use the e...
BRAD HENRY

There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.
HENRY KISSINGER

To succeed in hockey, you need teamwork.
HENRY SAMUELI

Musicians should not play music. Music should play musicians.
HENRY ROLLINS

Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.
HENRY FORD

My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
HENRY ROLLINS

You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.
HENRY FORD

Life is now a war zone, and as such, the number of people considered disposable has grown exponentia...
HENRY GIROUX

Perfect freedom is as necessary to the health and vigor of commerce as it is to the health and vigor...
PATRICK HENRY

Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for p...
HENRY FORD

I think that humans have a huge capacity to carry pain and sadness. There are things that haunt us o...
HENRY ROLLINS

In New York it seems like there's no Monday or Saturday or Sunday. The town is always moving. Th...
THIERRY HENRY

Progress requires setbacks; the only sure way to avoid failure is not to try.
HENRY SPENCER

A beach is not only a sweep of sand, but shells of sea creatures, the sea glass, the seaweed, the in...
HENRY GRUNWALD

After a storm comes a calm.
MATTHEW HENRY

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
HENRY KISSINGER

In winter, I plot and plan. In spring, I move.
HENRY ROLLINS

Everything has seasons, and we have to be able to recognize when something's time has passed and...
HENRY CLOUD

The month of November makes me feel that life is passing more quickly. In an effort to slow it down,...
HENRY ROLLINS

The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, aw...
HENRY MILLER

The creative habit is like a drug. The particular obsession changes, but the excitement, the thrill ...
HENRY MOORE

There is danger in reckless change, but greater danger in blind conservatism.
HENRY GEORGE

There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the ...
HENRY FORD

Would any one believe that I am master of slaves by my own purchase? I am drawn along by the general...
PATRICK HENRY

Shall we, who have laid the proud British lion at our feet, now be afraid of his whelps?
PATRICK HENRY

It is a debt we owe to the purity of our religion to show that it is at variance with that law which...
PATRICK HENRY

Unite liberality with a just frugality; always reserve something for the hand of charity; and never ...
PATRICK HENRY

The great object is that every man be armed.
PATRICK HENRY

This is all the inheritance I give to my dear family. The religion of Christ will give them one whic...
PATRICK HENRY

Fear is the passion of slaves.
PATRICK HENRY

The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I ...
PATRICK HENRY

We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our pow...
PATRICK HENRY

Do you remember any instance where tyranny was destroyed and freedom established on its ruins, among...
PATRICK HENRY

If this be treason, make the most of it!
PATRICK HENRY

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience.
PATRICK HENRY

No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in whi...
HENRY MILLER

So stick up ivy and the bays, and then restore the heathen ways, green will remind you of the Spring...
HENRY VAUGHAN

You need a little bit of insanity to do great things.
HENRY ROLLINS

I wonder what it's like to be from a state that is spread across a few islands way out in the Pa...
HENRY ROLLINS

By nature and doctrines I am addicted to the habit of discovering choice places wherein to feed.
O. HENRY

The Venturer is one who keeps his eye on the hedgerows and wayside groves and meadows while he trave...
O. HENRY

I never have time to read now. I did all my reading before I was twenty.
O. HENRY

It couldn't have happened anywhere but in little old New York.
O. HENRY

It'll be a great place if they ever finish it.
O. HENRY

Whenever he saw a dollar in another man's hands he took it as a personal grudge, if he couldn...
O. HENRY

East is East, and West is San Francisco, according to Californians. Californians are a race of peopl...
O. HENRY

When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard.
O. HENRY

Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence.
O. HENRY

By rights you're a king. If I was you, I'd call for a new deal.
O. HENRY

It brings up happy old days when I was only a farmer and not an agriculturist.
O. HENRY

If men knew how women pass the time when they are alone, they'd never marry.
O. HENRY

I have been called 'The American De Maupassant.' Well, I never wrote a filthy word in my lif...
O. HENRY

She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim owner...
O. HENRY

Write what you like; there is no other rule.
O. HENRY

I once asked Ozzy Osbourne, truly one of my favorite people in the world, if he was cool with singin...
HENRY ROLLINS

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.
HENRY FORD

Republicans just can't help themselves. They get in front of a live microphone and within a few ...
HENRY ROLLINS

The bronze powder business, however, no longer required my personal attention, and was well managed ...
HENRY BESSEMER

Seven-11 is the pulse-beat of America. I think that Bruce Springsteen should do a song about a 7-11 ...
HENRY ROLLINS

$250,000 isn't a lot, but it is enough to make a statement. We are looking for projects that will be...
AL HENRY

I'm proud of our team. We great leadership from our four seniors - Peter Jerome, Josh Trottier, Alex...
AL HENRY

Give credit where credit is due. Fargo South is a machine.
AL HENRY

This is an OK way to end it. As far as I'm concerned, our team is the winner.
AL HENRY

The tides which flow and lapse in the Bristol Channel are often distained by the freshets of many st...
HENRY WILLIAMSON

Towards four o'clock, the rebels felt strong enough to take the offensive. A brigade with a batt...
HENRY VILLARD

Today, most believers are segregated and isolated in their church or in their home. If believers acc...
HENRY HON

Unity is vision; it must have been part of the process of learning to see.
HENRY ADAMS

You are the reason I don't want to die all the time. When I am with you, life is worth living. Tim...
HENRY ROLLINS

I was influenced by Ray Harryhausen and Lotte Reiniger, with her twitchy, cutout animation, which I ...
HENRY SELICK

The world is the mirror of myself dying.
HENRY MILLER

In the attempt to defeat death man has been inevitably obliged to defeat life, for the two are inext...
HENRY MILLER

This is all the Inheritance I can give to my dear Family. The Religion of Christ can give them one w...
PATRICK HENRY

There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be freeif we mean to preserve inviolate those in...
PATRICK HENRY

Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our ...
PATRICK HENRY

It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a pain...
PATRICK HENRY

Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury and the liberty of the press necessary for your liberty? ...
PATRICK HENRY

They are all gone into the world of light, and I alone sit lingering here.
HENRY VAUGHAN

All this, and Heaven too!
PHILIP HENRY

To burn a CDR of music you like to give as a gift to someone you wish to become closer to is a cold,...
HENRY ROLLINS

Governments should not be able to bulldoze a person's home or business to benefit other individu...
HENRY BONILLA

A state-based regulatory system is quite burdensome. It allows price controls to create market disto...
HENRY PAULSON

Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy, you don't need it: if you are sick you should not take it.
HENRY FORD

In Israel, there's a lot to learn from anyone, because to live there you've got to deal with...
HENRY ROLLINS

'Immortals' was very much a martial arts based training program - a lot of body weight stuff...
HENRY CAVILL

When I'm off the road, and I can really control my diet down to the calorie, I juice seven days ...
HENRY ROLLINS

The Things that Cause a Quiet Life

My friend, the things that do attain
The happy li...
HENRY HOWARD

We Californians can watch the Weather Channel for images of winter's brutality unleashed upon ou...
HENRY ROLLINS

Buying a home today is a complex process, but that in no way excuses home buyers from their obligati...
HENRY PAULSON

Americans are a can-do people, an enthusiastic people, a problem-solving people. And when given a di...
HENRY CISNEROS

Well, they had a lot of the things they found in his possession. They had the map, you know, that ma...
HENRY WADE

Out in the lonely woods the jasmine burns Its fragrant lamps, and turns Into a royal court with gree...
HENRY TIMROD

It took me until my teenage years to realize that I was medicating with music. I was pushing back ag...
HENRY ROLLINS

Creating problems is easy. We do it all the time. Finding solutions, ones that last and produce good...
HENRY ROLLINS

Questioning anything and everything, to me, is punk rock.
HENRY ROLLINS

Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on.
HENRY ROLLINS

If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light, If I lose paper an...
HENRY ROLLINS

I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your ...
HENRY ROLLINS

I am on until I am dead, like a light bulb.
HENRY ROLLINS

My eyes don't work, at least not fully, because they are blocked by disease. The scene around me...
HENRY GRUNWALD

I'm a big fan of the American Tapes label. But that's very hard to keep a grip on that becau...
HENRY ROLLINS

Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.
HENRY KISSINGER

We can still do a stop motion feature for about one-third of what it costs Pixar or DreamWorks or Bl...
HENRY SELICK

The real leader has no need to lead -- he is content to point the way.
HENRY MILLER

I've been in Iraq, and it never occurred to me to go, 'Hey, this war is bogus,' to some ...
HENRY ROLLINS

I don't know if music has ever achieved anything past appealing to the people that it appeals to...
HENRY ROLLINS

To walk in money through the night crowd, protected by money, lulled by money, dulled by money, the ...
HENRY MILLER

Money's a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.
HENRY JAMES

Sin, guilt, neurosis --they are one and the same, the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
HENRY MILLER

Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
HENRY KISSINGER

If it's going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.
HENRY KISSINGER

In peace, competition had become difficult, until the British ship owner cried for war; yet he alrea...
HENRY ADAMS

Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free i...
HENRY ADAMS

The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence enough to ...
HENRY ADAMS

Morality is a private and costly luxury
HENRY ADAMS

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell, where his influence stops.
HENRY ADAMS

Intimates are predestined
HENRY ADAMS

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit
HENRY ADAMS

In plain words, Chaos was the law of nature Order was the dream of man.
HENRY ADAMS

Man is an imperceptible atom always trying to become one with God.
HENRY ADAMS

Chaos often breeds life when order breeds habit.
HENRY ADAMS

Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of ha...
HENRY ADAMS

I have written too much history to have faith in it; and if anyone thinks I'm wrong, I am inclined...
HENRY ADAMS

You say that love is nonsense....I tell you it is no such thing. For weeks and months it is a stea...
HENRY ADAMS

When widows exclaim loudly against second marriages, I would always lay a wager that the man, if not...
HENRY FIELDING

One fool at least in every married couple.
HENRY FIELDING

It is all one to me if a man comes from Sing Sing or Harvard. We hire a man, not his history.
HENRY FORD

Business is never so healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching for ...
HENRY FORD

If you think you can do it, or you think you can't do it, You are right.
HENRY FORD

What's right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity - int...
HENRY FORD

It is in the midst of disasters that bold men grow bolder.
HENRY IV

Law is king of all.
HENRY ALFORD

Nature is a collective idea, and, though its essence exist in each individual of the species, can ...
HENRY FUSELI

He had dropped upon a seat halfway down the nave and, again in the museum mood, was trying with head...
HENRY JAMES

Failure is central to engineering. Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation. Successful engineering is all about understanding how things break or fail.

Copied!

Henry Petroski

Failure is central to engineering. Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation. Successful engineering is all about understanding how things break or fail.

Henry Petroski

Share:

Related

More Henry Petroski