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Mechanics Quotes

Browse 15 quotes about Mechanics.

Mechanics Quotes

“The only thing that interests the physicist is finding out on what assumptions a framework of things can be constructed which will enable us to know how to use them mechanically. Physics, as I have said on another occasion, is the technique of techniques and the ars combinatoria for fabricating machines. It is a knowledge which has scarcely anything to do with comprehension.”

PhilosophyScienceKnowledgeTechniquePhysicsComprehensionMechanics
Author:José Ortega y Gasset
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“From seven in the morning until half past one the next morning -- that's quite a record time for a visitor to stay at a museum," [Henry Ford] continued. "It proves that you may be even more interested in mechanics than I am. And you almost have to be a fanatic to compete with me. That's certainly something!" he exclaimed, grinning broad approval of our common bond.”

MuseumsMachineryMechanicsDiego RiveraHenry FordThe Henry FordHenry Ford MuseumGreenfield Village
Book:My Art, My Life
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“Not everyone understands what a completely rational process this is, this maintenance of a motorcycle. They think it's some kind of "knack" or some kind of "affinity for machines" in operation. They are right, but the knack is almost purely a process of reason, and most of the troubles are caused by what old time radio men called a "short between the earphones," failures to use the head properly. A motorcycle functions entirely in accordance with the laws of reason, and a study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself.”

ReasonPhilosophyRationalityMotorcycleMechanicsMotorcycle Maintenance
Book:Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
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“It should be inserted here parenthetically that there's a school of mechanical thought which says I shouldn't be getting into a complex assembly I don't know anything about. I should have training or leave the job to a specialist. Thats a self-serving school of mechanical eliteness I'd like to see wiped out. [...] You're at a disadvantage the first time around it may cost you a little more because of parts you accidentally damage, and it will almost undoubtedly take a lot more time, but the next time around you're way ahead of the specialist. You, with gumption, have learned the assembly the hard way and you've a whole set of good feelings about it that he's unlikely to have.”

Do It YourselfSense Of AccomplishmentDiyMotorcyclesMechanicsMotorcycle Maintenance
Book:Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
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“Finally, if you're as exasperated as I am by the parts problem and have some money to invest, you can take up the really fascinating hobby of machining your own parts. [...] With the welding equipment you can build up worn surfaces with better than original metal and then machine it back to tolerance with carbide tools. [...] If you can't do the job directly you can always make something that will do it. The work of machining a part is very slow, and some parts, such as ball bearings, you're never going to machine, but you'd be amazed at how you can modify parts designs so that you can make them with your equipment, and the work isn't nearly a slow or frustrating as a wait for some smirking parts man to send away to the factory. And the work is gumption building, not gumption destroying. To run a cycle with parts in it you've made yourself gives you a special feeling you can't possibly get from strictly store-bought parts.”

Do It YourselfDiyMotorcyclesMechanics
Book:Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
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“On any mechanical repair job ego comes in for rough treatment. You're always being fooled, you're always making mistakes, and a mechanic who has a big ego to defend is at a terrific disadvantage. If you know enough mechanics to think of them as a group, and your observations coincide with mine, I think you'll agree that mechanics tend to be rather modest and quiet. There are exceptions, but generally if they're not quiet and modest at first, the works seems to make them that way. And skeptical. Attentive, but skeptical. But not egotistic. There's no way to bullshit your way into looking good on a mechanical repair job, except with someone who doesn't know what you're doing.”

TechniciansMechanicalMechanicsMotorcycle Maintenance
Book:Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
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“In my previous murals, I had tried to achieve a harmony in my painting with the architecture of the building. But to attempt such a harmony in the garden of the Institute would have defeated my purposes. For the walls here were of an intricate Italian baroque style, with little windows, heads of satyrs, doorways, and sculpturesque mouldings. It was within such a frame that I was to represent the life of an age which had nothing to do with baroque refinements -- a new life which was characterized by masses, machines, and naked mechanical power. So I set to work consciously to over-power the ornamentation of the room.”

ArtArchitectureMachineryDetroitMechanicsDiego RiveraMuralsDetroit Institute Of ArtsFrescoes
Book:My Art, My Life
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“The cracks grew over him like vines, faster and faster. At first he bucked, whinnying metallic screeches. Then he gradually stilled, looking up at me with frightened glass eyes. He was growing. New, molten glass leeched out between his fissures, cooled and hardened only to crack again and make room for more liquid glass. The gears inside him moaned and creaked, and metal filings gathered at the base of his transparent stomach, only to fly up again and form more joints and chains and gears. Black smoke poured from his nostrils. Soon he was the size of a large dog, then a man, and still he grew and grew until he towered over my bed, as big as any plow horse I’d ever seen. Glass dripped down his flanks like sweat, a few rivulets still glowing with molten heat.”

DreamsMagicHorseHorsesSteampunkMechanicsSteampunk Fairy TalesMechanicaSteampunk Fables
Book:Mechanica
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“That's all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel. There's no part in it, no shape in it, that is not out of someone's mind [...] I've noticed that people who have never worked with steel have trouble seeing this—that the motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon. They associate metal with given shapes—pipes, rods, girders, tools, parts—all of them fixed and inviolable., and think of it as primarily physical. But a person who does machining or foundry work or forger work or welding sees "steel" as having no shape at all. Steel can be any shape you want if you are skilled enough, and any shape but the one you want if you are not. Shapes, like this tappet, are what you arrive at, what you give to the steel. Steel has no more shape than this old pile of dirt on the engine here. These shapes are all of someone's mind. That's important to see. The steel? Hell, even the steel is out of someone's mind. There's no steel in nature. Anyone from the Bronze Age could have told you that. All nature has is a potential for steel. There's nothing else there.”

PhilosophyConceptsSteelMotorcyclesWeldingMechanicsMotorcycle MaintenanceMachiningFoundry
Book:Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
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“The phaenomena afforded by trades, are a part of the history of nature, and therefore may both challenge the naturalist's curiosity and add to his knowledge, Nor will it suffice to justify learned men in the neglect and contempt of this part of natural history, that the men, from whom it must be learned, are illiterate mechanicks... is indeed childish, and too unworthy of a philosopher, to be worthy of an honest answer.”

ScienceKnowledgeIlliterateNaturalistPhilosophersChildishMechanics
Author:Robert Boyle
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“إن فكرة الحتمية الفيزيائية التي تسربت للعقل الغربي منذ اكتشف نيوتن قوانين الحركة الميكانيكية ليست مبدأ عالميا يعم جميع ظواهر الطبيعة .. يعرف ذلك علماء ميكانيكا الكم ويعرف ذلك الشخص البسيط الذي يؤمن أن الله يستجيب الدعاء ويعرف أن استيقاظه من النوم كل صباح ليست عملية حتمية من لوازم قوانين الطبيعة ولكنها هبة من الله الذي أراد له أن يحيا يوما آخر!”

PhilosophyScienceReligionPhysicsQuantum PhysicsPhilosophy Of ScienceCausalityMechanics
Book:معادلة الإيمان
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