Gustave Eiffel Quotes

“Being the most striking manifestation of the art of metal structures by which our engineers have shown in Europe, the Eiffel Tower is one of the most striking of our modern national genius.”

“Can one think that because we are engineers, beauty does not preoccupy us or that we do not try to build beautiful, as well as solid and long lasting structures?

Aren't the genuine functions of strength always in keeping with unwritten conditions of harmony?

Besides, there is an attraction, a special charm in the colossal to which ordinary theories of art do not apply.”

“I ought to be jealous of the tower. She is more famous than I am.”

“It has been ascertained by statistical observation that in engineering enterprises one man is killed for every million francs that is spent on the works.

Supposing you have to build a bridge at an expense of one hundred million francs, you must be prepared for the death of one hundred men.

In building the Eiffel Tower, which was a construction costing six million and a half, we only lost four men, thus remaining below the average. In the construction of the Forth Bridge, 55 men were lost in over 45,000,000 francs’ worth of work.

That would appear to be a large number according to the general rule, but when the special risks are remembered, this number shows as a very small one.”

“It seems to me that it had no other rationale than to show that we are not simply the country of entertainers, but also that of engineers and builders called from across the world to build bridges, viaducts, stations and major monuments of modern industry, the Eiffel Tower deserves to be treated with consideration.”

“The Eiffel Tower will be the tallest edifice ever raised by man. Will it therefore be imposing in its own way?”

“The first principle of architectural beauty is that the essential lines of a construction be determined by a perfect appropriateness to its use.”

“The French flag is the only one to have a staff a thousand feet tall.”

“The fundamental idea of these pylons, or great archways, is based on a method of construction peculiar to me, of which the principle consists in giving to the edges of the pyramid a curve of such a nature that this pyramid shall be capable of resisting the force of the wind without necessitating the junction of the edges by diagonals as is usually done.”

“Well, I think the curves of the four pillars of the monument, as the calculations have provided them, give it a great sense of force and beauty.”

“Without tracing back to the Tower of Babel, one can observe that the very idea of building a very tall tower has long haunted human imagination.

That kind of victory over the formidable law of gravity that tethers man to the ground has always appeared to him a symbol of the force and the challenges overcome.”