"It is confidence which causes accidents and worry which prevents them."
James Edward Gordon was a materials scientist and biomechanical engineer who is considered to be one of the founders of materials science and biomechanics. He was a professor of materials science at the University of Reading, and authored three books on structures and materials, which have been translated into many languages and are still widely used in schools and universities.
"If a ship runs into a large bridge, destroying both the bridge and ship, , it is very difficult to see what either the naval architect or the bridge designer could have been expected to do about it from the structural point of view. The problem is not one for the structural engineer but for the local Pilotage Association. Again, aircraft cannot be designed to be flown into mountains."
"The immediate technical cause of was the tearing of the fabric of the outer envelope; this fabric had apparently been embrittled by improper doping treatment. The real reason for the disaster was, however, pride and jealousy and political ambition."
"In the course of a long professional life spent, or misspent, in the study of the strengths of materials and structures, I have had cause to examine a lot of accidents, many of them fatal. I have been forced to the conclusion that very few accidents just "happen" in a morally neutral way. Nine out of ten accidents are caused, not by more or less abstruse technical effects, but by old-fashioned human sin — often verging on plain wickedness. Of course I do not mean the more gilded and juicy sins like deliberate murder, large-scale fraud, or Sex. It is squalid sins like carelessness, idleness, wont-learn-and-dont-need-to-ask, you-cant-tell-me-anything-about-my-job, pride, jealousy and greed that kill people."
"There are always a few people for whom the most obvious sequences of technical cause and effect have no meaning."