Quotes on Design

As an architect you design for the present, with an awareness of the past, for a future which is essentially unknown.

It seems like suffering's the only time we can see what's essential. If peace ever comes back I'm making a vow: I'll design myself special glasses. They'll block out whether people are fat or thin or beautiful or weird-looking, whether they have pimples or birthmarks or different coloured skin. They'll do everything suffering's done for us, but without the pain. I'm going to wear those glasses for the rest of my life.

A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.

The issue is not whether there are horrible cases where the penalty seems "right". The real question is whether we will ever design a capital system that reaches only the "right" cases, without dragging in the wrong cases, cases of innocence or cases where death is not proportionate punishment. Slowly, even reluctantly, I have realized the answer to that question is no- we will never get it right.

In evolution, as in all areas of science, our knowledge is incomplete. But the entire success of the scientific enterprise has depended on an insistence that these gaps be filled by natural explanations, logically derived from confirmable evidence. Because "intelligent design" theories are based on supernatural explanations, they can have nothing to do with science.

Nature in her unfathomable designs had mixed us of clay and flame, of brain and mind, that the two things hang indubitably together and determine each other's being but how or why, no mortal may ever know.

Jazz is a sideways glance at music. It's like being an architect, knowing the basis of design but understanding that the facade can be whatever you dream.

When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive knowledge.

He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being.

I passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.

A product can live on one great idea. An interior needs 1,000 great ideas to really live, which makes interior design a whole orchestration of this art of juxtaposition, placement, and combination.

Design is inherently optimistic. That is its power.

the neighborhood is nothing but a protective zone- remodeling, disinfection, a snobbish and hygenic design- but above all in a figurative sense: it is a machine for making emptiness.

The practice of art isn't to make a living. It's to make your soul grow.

The problem with intelligent-design theory, is not that it is false but that it is not falsifiable. Not being susceptible to contradicting evidence, it is not a testable hypothesis. Hence it is not a scientific but a creedal tenet - a matter of faith, unsuited to a public school's science curriculum.

I wanted to create a toolkit which I would have wanted as an entrepreneur to use these principles of psychology in product design. Some startups totally forget the trigger. In some, the action is too complicated. Others don't have a variable reward, which maintains mystery.

Music is not a language. Any musical piece is akin to a boulder with complex forms, with striations and engraved designs atop and within, which men can decipher in a thousand different ways without ever finding the right answer or the best one.

The Final Jeopardy! questions seem to be, by design, things you can't know. And so it's not about who knows them, but who can figure them out in thirty seconds.

For the first time in history it is now possible to take care of everybody at a higher standard of living than any have ever known. Only ten years ago the 'more with less' technology reached the point where this could be done. All humanity now has the option to become enduringly successful.

The critical thing in developing software is not the program, it's the design. It is translating understanding of user needs into something that can be realized as a computer program.

Thirty spokes meet in the hub,_x000D_ _x000D_ but the empty space between them_x000D_ _x000D_ is the essence of the wheel._x000D_ _x000D_ _x000D_ Pots are formed from clay,_x000D_ _x000D_ but the empty space within it_x000D_ _x000D_ is the essence of the pot._x000D_ _x000D_ _x000D_ Walls with windows and doors_x000D_ _x000D_ form the house,_x000D_ _x000D_ but the empty space within it_x000D_ _x000D_ is the essence of the home.