Alec Issigonis Quotes

They sit there in committees day after day, And they each put in a color and it comes out gray. And we all have heard the saying, which is true as well as witty, That a camel is a horse that was designed by a committee.

A committee is an animal with four back legs.

Joint committees are heat generators rather than light producers.

I chair cabinet, we have robust debates during cabinet meetings and we actually come to decisions as a consensus. It's very much people are very passionate about different views and everything, but that's what a cabinet should be like.

If I had to express in one word what makes their [creative individuals'] personalities different from others, it's complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an "individual," each of them is a "multitude."

If the world were clear, art would not exist.

I'm not a big believer in doing things unilaterally. I'm a big believer in opening up a dialogue and figuring out how we can make something work for all people.

I like the really human sides of people. To meet them and see that they’re complicated and weird or shy or any of those things sort of makes it even better—to know that they can rise above that and make something great.

It must be a source of great chagrin to those in charge to think of so many people being able to stick a stamp on a letter and drop it in a mail box without any trouble or suffering at all. They are probably working on a system this very minute, trying to devise some way in which the public can be made to fill out a blank, stand in line, consult some underling who will refer him to a superior, and then be made to black up with burned cork before they can mail a letter.

Intelligence collection has been given an additional bureaucracy to correct the problems created by too much bureaucracy in intelligence collection.

For being different, it’s easy. But to be unique, it’s a complicated thing.

A brilliant design will always benefit from the input of others.

Maybe we're all cabinets of wonders.

Building slow destroyers ! One might as well breed slow race horses.

Too many cooks spoil the broth

You never agree with any one candidate 100 percent. I don't agree with myself 100 percent. You don't even agree with me 100 percent.

Here's what I like about God: Trees are crooked, mountains are lumpy, a lot of his creatures are funny looking, and he made it all anyway. He didn't let the aardvark convince him he had no business designing creatures. He didn't make a puffer fish and get discouraged, no, the maker made things - and still does.

There's some things that you're passionate about as a director. You just know it has to be a certain way. The challenge is resolving those so everyone is happy and no one feels that they have not been heard.

And in Improvisation there is one hard and fast rule, and that rule is known as "Yes And." The term YES AND: to say yes, and not just yes, but to add information. In the adding of information you don't negate the other persons idea - but you build on it.

Even though designing your own show, that's great, I am nothing without the support around me.

When you want to do something that is challenging or interesting or new, you never find the place. All the places are obvious or old or generic. And so you realize that the role of architecture is fundamental.

There's a misconception about teamwork. Teamwork is the ability to have different thoughts about things; it's the ability to argue and stand up and say loud and strong what you feel. But in the end, it's also the ability to adjust to what is the best for the team.

One of the mistakes they often make is the designers over-accessorize or over-elaborate. So you realize: this would work if they removed X and Y. And actually, that's the sort of thing that translates into writing, because a lot of the time you realize, I feel I need to add something here but actually what I need to do is subtract. And then there's always the psychodrama and the tears and the rage and the feuds.

Your best work is your expression of yourself. Now, you may not be the greatest at it, but when you do it, you're the only expert.

My computer is a very complex gadget and it was designed by many designers, so why must the universe have only a single designer and not many designers?