Henry Petroski Quotes

There are checks and balances in science. There's somebody checking the people doing the science, and then there's somebody who checks the checkers and somebody who checks the checker's checkers.

Any man is liable to err, only a fool persists in error.

I have to be careful. My readers are very detail-oriented, and if I make a mistake they'll call me on it.

Everything has to be perfect in my business. Because when there is a mistake I am the one who is responsible.

The thrill of science is the process. It's a social process. It's a process of collective discovery. It's debate, it's experimentation and it's verification of claims that might be false. It's the greatest foundation for a society.

If there is an error of human judgment, I am the human.

If any sort of error is inexcusable, it's an incorrect phone number. One of the cardinal rules of copy editing is that every phone number published must be checked.

In properly organized groups no faith is required; what is required is simply a little trust and even that only for a little while, for the sooner a man begins to verify all he hears the better it is for him.

I think there are ways that graduate students can fact-check their work. I think there are ways that we can do this that don't require massive amounts of resources.

They've finally comes up with the perfect office computer. If it makes a mistake, it blames another computer.

We need to be able to turn to our immediate circle to ascertain whether our internal checks and balances are functional and to be able to rely on them to point out gross errors.

We do have our mistakes sometimes, like 'The New York Times' does, like everything does. We correct them.

Don't buy into the notion that mistakes can somehow be avoided. They can't be.

Even a president makes mistakes.

I will not quarrel with a slight mistake, Such as our nature's frailty may excuse.

Great teams do not hold back with one another. They are unafraid to air their dirty laundry. They admit their mistakes, their weaknesses, and their concerns without fear of reprisal.

Are doctors who make mistakes villains? No, because then we all are.

We're not perfect every time. We make mistakes just like everybody else. But, we stay on top of it, and we stay with it, and we make sure we get it right.

Every man got a right to his own mistakes. Ain't no man that ain't made any.

We all make mistakes at some time in our lives, some more than others. It is only when the cost is counted in human lives that people really take notice.

To create guilt, all that you need is a very simple thing: start calling mistakes, errors - sins. They are simply mistakes, human. Now, if somebody commits a mistake in mathematics - two plus two, and he concludes it makes five - you don't say he has committed a sin. He is unalert, he is not paying attention to what he is doing. He is unprepared, he has not done his homework. He is certainly committing a mistake, but a mistake is not a sin. It can be corrected. A mistake does not make him feel guilty. At the most it makes him feel foolish.

Everybody makes mistakes; look at Hitler.

It’s not who was right or who was wrong when a mistake was made. It’s about who learned from it.

Learning from mistakes and constantly improving products is a key in all successful companies.