Design quotes
2.8K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside design — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"For some reason I have a visual intuition that allows me to design things in an interesting way, and I don't know where that came from. Because I don't have this formal training, I seem to drift in a different direction."
"Art is never finished, only abandoned."
"I never design a building before I've seen the site and met the people who will be using it."
"I make all my decisions on intuition. But then, I must know why I made that decision. I throw a spear into the darkness. That is intuition. Then I must send an army into the darkness to find the spear. That is intellect."
"If I have made a mistake in the design, then I'm the one who should pay for it. I certainly would not ask somebody else to fly a plane if I were afraid to do it myself."
"Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs."
"You have to finish things - that's what you learn from, you learn by finishing things."
"No design can exist in isolation. It is always related, sometimes in very complex ways, to an entire constellation of influencing situations and attitudes. What we call a good design is one which achieves integrity – that is, unity or wholeness – in balanced relation to its environment."
"All struggles are essentially power struggles. Who will rule? Who will lead? Who will define, refine, confine, design? Who will dominate? All struggles are essentially power struggles,and most are no more intellectual than two rams knocking their heads together."
"Good design, like good painting, cooking, architecture or whatever you like, is a manifestation of the capacity of the human spirit to transcend its limitations."
"Always presume that the enemy has dangerous designs and always be forehanded with the remedy. But do not let these calculations make your timid."
"Simplicity, carried to an an extreme, becomes elegance."
"The folly of Interpreters has been, to foretell times and things by this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them Prophets. By this rashness they have not only exposed themselves, but brought the Prophecy also into contempt. The design of God was much otherwise. He gave this and the Prophecies of the Old Testament, not to gratify mens curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and his own Providence, not the Interpreters, be then manifested thereby to the world."
"Design is a response to social change."
"Architecture is not about designing somehting from a free, fanciful idea. It is about discovering and establishing one's own principle, some kind of regularity - finding an individual formula to apply to one's buildings."
"Advocates for a single line of progress encounter their greatest stumbling block when they try to find a smooth link between the apparently disparate designs of the invertebrates and vertebrates."
"The role of design at a company is to allow you to recreate yourself, to allow your company to find a new way of success before the old way fails."
"Design is everything. Everything!"
"Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art."
"Art does not begin with imitation, but with discipline."
