Plumbing

An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. ~ John W. Gardner

Plumbing (from the Latin plumbum for lead) is the skilled trade of working with pipes, tubing and plumbing fixtures for drinking water systems and the drainage of waste. A plumber is someone who installs or repairs piping systems, plumbing fixtures and equipment.

Quotes

• An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
  • John W. Gardner, President, Carnegie Corporation, "Excellence: Can We Be Equal and Excellent Too?", p. 86 (1961)

• I long to create something
  that can’t be used to keep us passive:
  I want to write
  a script about plumbing, how every pipe
  is joined
  to every other.
  • Adrienne Rich, U.S. poet and feminist. “Essential Resources,” lines 17-22 (1973)