Niklaus Wirth Quotes

I wanted to be an architect. I used to draw houses and buildings and construct buildings on my own.

I used to do design before I was actually rapping. I went to art and design high school.

I design all my sets. With my tour and my album artwork, I co-design that with people who are better at drawing than me. But I've got a good imagination. I went to art school so I understand how to communicate my ideas.

I was an arts student. I did graphic design. Being an artist, I did a lot of paintings. I have always had that creative side to me.

I grew up in Romania studying art and architecture.

The actual teaching itself becomes lost in a sea of paperwork and teachers soon realise that the very reason they entered this profession constitutes only a fraction of their working day.

So many directors these days direct by design and shoehorn you into things - direction or blocking - that they had in mind previously. They're short on time and they want to get that over with so they can get onto the finer details of a play.

Us visual thinkers like me, be good at things like industrial design, graphics, art, those kind of jobs.

There is a verse [in the Koran] that says God swears by time. Anything you gain in life, you pay for with your time. Time is the most important thing that has been given to man.

Draw, Antonio; draw, Antonio; draw and don’t waste time.

Solidly know content you feel passionate about and that your audience needs to know.

I started designing book jackets, which was great because I was good at it. And then from there I decided to become a freelance graphic designer and I needed to expand beyond book jackets, so I taught myself web design, and then in 1999 some friends of mine decided to start a company called Xanga.com, which was a very early kind of social network slash blogging community.

Composition, the aim of which is expression, alters itself according to the surface to be covered. If I take a sheet of paper of given dimensions, I will jot down a drawing which will have a necessary relation to its format.

If you want me to give you a two-hour presentation, I am ready today. If you want only a five-minute speech, it will take me two weeks to prepare.

When we design our national R&D programs, we ought to ensure a place for the small, the new, and the cutting-edge.

Books are infinite in number and time is short. The secret of knowledge is to take what is essential. Take that and try to live up to it.

There's always time to do things that you're passionate about. ... If my name helps get something out there that I believe in then I am going to produce it. ... Design is really my true love.

The pace of events is moving so fast that unless we can find some way to keep our sights on tomorrow, we cannot expect to be in touch with today.

If people are highly successful in their profession they lose their senses. Sight goes. They have no time to look at pictures. Sound goes. They have no time to listen to music. Speech goes. They have no time for conversation. They lose their sense of proportion.

Always think of drawing, getting the forms realized, emphasizing the design.

You can eliminate color and still have a painting that works, but you must have drawing, value and design.

I work a lot and I like to get out and work but the work I do to make the other work work I'm not very good at.

See all these buildings, Russell? All these buildings were once a drawing on a piece of paper, and before that they were an idea in someone’s head. Any idea that you have, you can make manifest.

Don’t sign on for more problems than you must. Resist the temptation to involve yourself in other people’s zones of expertise and responsibility. Monitor troublesome situations if you need to, but don’t insert yourself unless you’re running out of time and a solution is nowhere in sight. In short, stifle your inner control freak.

The science of design, or of line-drawing, if you like to use this term, is the source and very essence of painting, sculpture, architecture... Sometimes... it seems to me that... all the works of the human brain and hand are either design itself or a branch of that art.