Construction Quotes: 40+ Lines on Building, Design & Craft

Construction people know better than most that what you build reflects how you think. These quotes — from architects, craftsmen, presidents, and philosophers — hold up on a job site or in a boardroom. We’ve organized them by theme so you can find what you’re looking for.

As humans, we are all “building” something–  whether it be healthy habits, a new business, better relationships, or anything else. We are the architects of our lives and our destinies, so if these inspiring messages are good enough for draftsmen and builders, they are good enough for anyone who wants to do better at what they are passionate about.

Topics Covered:

• • Planning
  • Accuracy
  • Vision
  • Effort
  • Dreams
  • Shape
  • Quality
  • Craftsmanship
  • From The Architects
  • The Big Picture

Planning

Before the first nail is driven, the outcome is already being decided. These quotes on planning apply equally to a construction schedule and a business strategy.

▎ “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” — Benjamin Franklin

▎ “Plans are nothing; planning is everything.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower

▎ “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” — Abraham Lincoln

▎ “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

▎ “It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

Accuracy

In construction, close enough isn’t. The same discipline that keeps a wall plumb keeps a budget intact.

▎ “Measure twice, cut once.” — Traditional carpenter’s proverb

▎ “The details are not the details. They make the design.” — Charles Eames

▎ “God is in the details.” — Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

▎ “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” — Vince Lombardi

Vision

Every project starts as an idea — a floor plan on paper, a sketch, a client’s description of what they need. Vision is what connects that idea to something you can walk through.

▎ “Form ever follows function.” — Louis Sullivan

▎ “Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep.” — Le Corbusier

▎ “Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space.” — Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

▎ “The purpose of architecture is to shelter and enhance man’s life on earth and to fulfill his belief in the nobility of his existence.” — Eero Saarinen

Effort

There’s no shortcut on a job site.

▎ “Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.” — John Ruskin

▎ “Whatever you do, do it well.” — Walt Disney

▎ “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” — Mark Twain

▎ “Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.” — George Halas

Dreams

Most of the buildings Emerald builds represent years of someone’s savings and the realization of a long-held goal — a dental practice, a restaurant, an office, a headquarters. Construction is in the business of making those things real.

▎ “All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.” — Philip Johnson

▎ “Every great dream begins with a dreamer.” — Harriet Tubman

▎ “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

▎ “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” — Albert Einstein

Shape

Buildings don’t just reflect who we are. They shape how we feel, how we work, and how we move through the world.

▎ “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” — Winston Churchill

▎ “Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.” —Frank Gehry

▎ “A house is a machine for living in.” — Le Corbusier

Quality

▎ “Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.” — Henry Ford

▎ “There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man’s lawful prey.” — John Ruskin

▎ “Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten.” — Gucci family motto

▎ “If it is worth doing, it is worth doing right.” — Traditional

Craftsmanship

There’s a difference between finished and done well.

▎ “A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.” — Louis Nizer

▎ “The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.” — Elbert Hubbard

▎ “Skilled labor is not cheap. Cheap labor is not skilled.” — Traditional

From the Architects

Some of the most quotable minds in architecture — on design, on space, and on the responsibility of the craft.

▎ “Less is more.” — Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

▎ “I call architecture frozen music.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

▎ “The mother art is architecture. Without an architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

▎ “The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his client to plant vines.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

▎ “Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins.” — Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

▎ “A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed, and in the end must be unmeasurable.” — Louis Kahn

▎ “Architecture is the thoughtful making of space.” — Louis Kahn

The Big Picture

▎ “No great thing is created suddenly.” — Epictetus

▎ “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” — Aristotle

▎ “Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.” — Henry Ford

▎ “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” — Michelangelo

Conclusion

We hope these quotes gave you some inspiration that will help you build better today.

If your project involves a commercial build-out in the Phoenix metro area — a medical office, restaurant, retail shop, warehouse, or office space — Emerald Inc. builds from permit through punch list. Request a consultation to talk us through your scope and to get a comprehensive, no-obligation construction cost breakdown for your project.