Hands-on Skills Quotes

Knowing how to do things not just with the head, but with the hands as well: this might seem a programmatic and ideological goal. It is not. It is a way of safeguarding creative freedom.

The world does not run on the number of certificates one has, but on the skills our hands have. Let the youth dream big and aim for the sky. The work of a government should be to open doors.

Nobody would have me in their laboratory for five minutes. I couldn't cut up a frog, and I certainly couldn't perform surgery. I'm better at making it possible for other people.

I've always been interested in mechanical things. I think I must have been heavily influenced by my father, who is also very good with his hands. He liked to build things. I always loved to watch him do it, and I loved to build things on my own.

I would like to see the day when somebody would be appointed surgeon somewhere who had no hands, for the operative part is the least part of the work.

Food became for me a way of becoming self-sufficient with my hands, to regain manual literacy, which I think has been lost on our generation and certainly younger generations. Very few people can actually make things with their hands and do things with their hands.

My mother, grandmother and older sister all cooked, so it was hard to get into the kitchen. So I have no talent for cooking. I was always out in the garage with my dad. I have a tool belt. I'm a repair chick.

I wasn't a smart kid and I still don't think I'm too smart when it comes to book smart, but I was very good with what I knew and with my craft and I think that was my calling in life. But even today I never went to college.

All over the US, there is a need to teach young people to, really, get them out in the backyard, building treehouses, fixing bicycles, because you become a better, more well-rounded, Renaissance personality if you actually know how to do things with your hands. If you can fix the screen door or replace your old garbage disposal, even change the tire on a car, a lot of people don't even know how to do that. We're literally running out of people who know how to do those things, the essential things like plumbing, carpentry, stone masonry, we're literally running out of them.

I am a mechanical techie. I can build things with my hands.

One of my first questions when I interview prospective employees is, 'Do you know how big a sheet of plywood is?' Most people don't, and say they are different sizes, but it's 4' x 8'. Anyway, working with your hands is a very American thing that we kinda lost here, but it's an important skill to have.