No one wants to learn from mistakes, but we cannot learn enough from successes to go beyond the state of the art.

There's so much written about the Titanic, and it's hard to separate what's fact and what's fiction. My understanding is that the way the Titanic was designed, the emphasis was placed on surviving a head-on collision.

Design is nothing if not decision making.

Engineering is achieving function while avoiding failure.

Any design, whether its for a ship or an airplane, must be done in anticipation of potential failures.

The bookshelf, like the book, has become an integral part of civilization as we know it, its presence in a home practically defining what it means to be civilized, educated, and refined.

The plain wooden toothpick, it may be argued, is among the simplest of manufactured things. It consists of a single part, made of a single material, intended for a single purpose-from which it gets its simple name. It is also among the most convenient and ready of things. It can be used directly out of the box-there being no instructions to read, no parts to assemble, no priming or booting required, and no maintenance expected. When it has served its purpose, it is simply discarded.