Building Construction Quotes

“The problem with many Jesus freaks is that we claim to 'build our house on a rock,' but when a storm comes we have such confidence in the building that all our focus is on the house. As if surety comes from construction, not from the foundation.”

— Anna Broadway

“I heard a story once in the Orient about two architects who went to see the Buddha. They had run out of money on their projects and hoped the Buddha could do something about it. 'Well, I'll do what I can,' said the Buddha, and he went off to see their work. The first architect was building a bridge, and the Buddha was very impressed. 'That's a very good bridge,' he said, and he began to pray. Suddenly a great white bull appeared, carrying on its back enough gold to finish construction. 'Take it,' said the Buddha, 'and build even more bridges.' And so the first architect went away very happy. The second architect was building a wall, and when the Buddha saw it he was equally impressed. 'That's a very good wall,' he said solemnly, and began to pray. Suddenly the sacred bull appeared, walked over to the second architect, and sat on him.”

— Colin Higgins

“In the 1954 Internal Revenue Code, a Republican Congress changed forty-year, straight-line depreciation for buildings to permit 'accelerated depreciation' of greenfield income-producing property in seven years. By enabling owners to depreciate or write off the value of a building in such a short time, the law created a gigantic hidden subsidy for the developers of cheap new commercial buildings located on strips. Accelerated depreciation not only encouraged poor construction, it also discouraged maintenance ... After time, the result was abandonment.”

— Dolores Hayden

“There is some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house that there is in a bird's building its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged? But alas! we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter?”

— Henry David Thoreau

“On London Tonight, on television right now, a reporter is standing in front of a building that is under construction. It's windy, and the wind has pressed the fabric of his slacks against his body, outlining his penis. You can see everything-the length and width and the fact that he's uncut and hangs to the right. But I bet none of the viewers even noticed. In America, there would be letters to the station. There would be a lawsuit because a child was watching. The headlines would dub the reporter "Anchor of Shame" and he'd be fired. When our own Greta Van Susteren got her eyes done, it was front-page news for a week. So you can be sure, if Anderson Cooper's penis were to be visible in outline beneath his trousers, he'd be on the cover of People, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times. We are obsessed with sex in an unnatural way.”

— Augusten Burroughs

“I don't know if it's genetic or just because I was surrounded by it, but I was always fascinated with building and construction and development.”

— Donald Trump, Jr.

“I love Columbus Circle. I rebelled against the construction for a while because I go back to the '70s. There was no Time Warner building. Now I've started to really like it.”

— Peter Scolari

“There are fashions in building. Behind the fashions lie economic and technological reasons, and these fashions exclude all but a few genuinely different possibilities in city dwelling construction at any one time.”

— Jane Jacobs

“Personal branding for dream fulfillment often comes like the process of building castles. You have to be attracted to the construction work carefully, consistently and passionately over time.”

— Israelmore Ayivor

“From this height the sleeping city seems like a child's construction, a model which has refused to be constrained by imagination. The volcanic plug might be black Plasticine, the castle balanced solidly atop it a skewed rendition of crenellated building bricks. The orange street lamps are crumpled toffee-wrappers glued to lollipop sticks.”

— Ian Rankin

“During the nineteenth century, the rapid emergence and proliferation of new manufacturing methods and building technologies led to the establishment of polytechnic schools that concentrated on the practicalities of engineering and construction rather than the niceties of stylistic correctness or adherence to established precedent.”

— Martin Filler

“When I say artist I mean the man who is building things - creating molding the earth - whether it be the plains of the west - or the iron ore of Penn. It's all a big game of construction - some with a brush - some with a shovel - some choose a pen.”

— Jackson Pollock

“Never worry about the delay of your success compared to others, because construction of a palace takes more time than an ordinary building.”

— Anonymous.

“I've been working with contractors designing and building a house on a nonstop basis since 2005. I learned about all these systems of audio, construction, electricity, energy, water systems.”

— Tony Fadell

“My first job in construction paid my way through art school. I was building to pay my bills.”

— Ty Pennington

“Sometimes the only way to call attention to bad construction was to set fire to the building.”

— Larry Niven

“It is not the beauty of a building you should look at; its the construction of the foundation that will stand the test of time.”

— David Allan Coe

“If you look at a building by Mies van der Rohe, it might look very simple, but up close, the sheer quality of construction, materials and thought are inspirational.”

— David Chipperfield

“There isn't an amount of money you could offer me to do reality TV. I would rather get my job back on the building site. Or I could own a construction business. Maybe I could retire to my house in Long Island and take up painting, like Captain Beefheart. A crazy recluse: I like that idea.”

— Dave Gahan

“What I try to do is the art of building, and the art of building is the art of construction; it is not only about forms and shapes and images.”

— Peter Zumthor

“I'll bet there are a lot of artists that nobody hears about who just make more money than anybody. The people that do all the sculptures and paintings for big building construction. We never hear about them, but they make more money than anybody.”

— Andy Warhol

“I once called construction companies to bid on an addition to the school library so that there would suddenly be people outside, measuring the building. 'Who authorized this?' the principal would ask. The answer: 'Howie Mandel.'”

— Howie Mandel

“Anybody with leisure can do that who is willing to begin where everything ought to be begun
that is, at the beginning. Nothing worth calling good can or ever will be started full grown. The essential of any good is life, and the very body of created life, and essential to it, being its self operant, is growth. The larger start you make, the less room you leave for life to extend itself. You fill with the dead matter of your construction the places where assimilation ought to have its perfect work, building by a life-process, self-extending, and subserving the whole. Small beginnings with slow growings have time to root themselves thoroughly
I do not mean in place nor yet in social regard, but in wisdom. Such even prosper by failures, for their failures are not too great to be rectified without injury to the original idea.”

— George MacDonald

“If a building looks better under construction than it does when finished, then it's a failure.”

— Douglas Coupland

“My method is different. I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements, and operate the device entirely in my mind.”

— Nikola Tesla

“Abby must have been the one who found the safe house, because Townsend didn't like it.
"The building across the street is under construction," he snarled as soon as we'd carried our bags inside.
"The elevator has key card access, and I've hacked into the surveillance cameras from every system on the block," Abby argued. "We have a three-hundred-sixty-degree visual."
"Excellent." Townsend dropped his bag. "Now the circle can see us from every angle."
"Don't mind Agent Townsend, girls," Abby told us. "He's a glass-half-empty kind of spy."
"Also known as the good kind," he countered.
Abby huffed.”

— Ally Carter

“Think that you are part of a big construction called science and you are not just a chemist but you are scientist. Be modest but proud. Modest because you know you will not be able to solve other problems because your life is too short. But be proud because you are contributing to it. Some people will bring a small stone to the building and some people will bring a big one but nevertheless no one can take that stone away from you.”

— Jean-Marie Lehn

“To write music is to raise a ladder without a wall to lean it against. There is no scaffolding: the building under construction is held in balance only by the miracle of a kind of internal logic, an innate sense of proportion.”

— Arthur Honegger

“There is a precarious balance to the life of a building. It has nothing to do with its age, or the beauty of its construction. A damaged building can always be repaired if it still has life, but a dead building will never be whole again.”

— Natsuhiko Kyogoku

“When I get an idea I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind. It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in my thought or test it in my shop. I even note if it is out of balance.”

— Nikola Tesla

“Building Code changes to mid-rise wood construction will give builders and the public even safer, more flexible building options. Our made-in-Ontario model for mid-rise wood provides the highest requirements for fire safety in Canada.”

— Ted McMeekin

“Most loss of life and property has been due to the collapse of antiquated and unsafe structures, mostly of brick and other masonry ... There is progress of California toward building new construction according to earthquake-resistant design. We would have less reason to ask for earthquake prediction if this was universal.”

— Charles Francis Richter

“If I may throw out a word of counsel to beginners, it is: Treasure your exceptions! When there are none, the work gets so dull that no one cares to carry it further. Keep them always uncovered and in sight. Exceptions are like the rough brickwork of a growing building which tells that there is more to come and shows where the next construction is to be.”

— William Bateson

“For it is no railways, roads, and power stations that give rise to industrial capitalism: it is the emergence of industrial capitalism that leads to the building of railways, to the construction of roads, and to the establishment of power stations.”

— Paul A. Baran

“The construction industry likes nothing more than a blank canvas onto which they can impose a brand new building, because that way they can make more money.”

— Jonathan Meades

“The tragic effects of terrorism have forced the new-construction industry to re-evaluate traditional methods of fire protection in commercial infrastructures. That includes everything from building codes, to structural design issues and the less durable fireproofing materials currently specified for commercial steel structures.”

— Craig Scott

“Nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century exponents of prefabrication were certain it would supplant age-old traditions of individualized design and handcrafted construction. The building art would be revolutionized by freeing designers and construction workers from repetitive tasks, and democratized by making high-style architecture more affordable.”

— Martin Filler

“Regulation - which is based on force and fear - undermines the moral base of business dealings. It becomes cheaper to bribe a building inspector than to meet his standards of construction. Protection of the consumer by regulation is thus illusory.”

— Alan Greenspan

“Hypotheses are only the pieces of scaffolding which are erected round a building during the course of construction, and which are taken away as soon as the edifice is completed.”

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

“I try to explain the difference to a client between cleaning and restoration.Cleaning is simply removing some light to moderate soils. Restoration is removing those hardened deposits and stains that require heavier cleaners and much more time. Or on a building that has just been built or renovated it's removing all the construction debris. Setting expectations can go a long way to having and keeping satisfied customers.”

— Tony Evans

“If you hate my guts and have designs to hurt me, and I see you building a cannon aimed at my house, I am not going to wait for you to finish construction.”

— Walter E. Williams

“A record is something that isn't real or true. It's like cinema. It's a construction of something hyper-real and surreal and unreal all at the same time. You make a space that doesn't really exist. One of the big joys of being in this line of work is building the recorded versions of the songs.”

— Will Oldham

“The construction of temples of the Ionic order to Juno , Diana , Father Bacchus, and the other gods of that kind, will be in keeping with the middle position which they hold; for the building of such will be an appropriate combination of the severity of the Doric and the delicacy of the Corinthian .”

— Marcus Vitruvius Pollio