101 Engineering Quotes from the Minds of Innovators - WorkflowMax

Engineering Quotes
from the
Minds of Innovators
101

“One man’s “magic” is
another man’s engineering.
“Supernatural” is a null word.”
– Robert A. Heinlein

“Engineers like to solve
problems. If there are no
problems handily available,
they will create their own
problems.”
– Scott Adams

“But remember this,
Japanese boy... airplanes are
not tools for war. They are
not for making money.
Airplanes are beautiful
dreams. Engineers turn
dreams into reality.”
– Hayao Miyazaki

“All we know about the new
economic world tells us that
nations which train engineers
will prevail over those which
train lawyers. No nation has
ever sued its way to
greatness.”
– Richard Lamm

“I was originally supposed to
become an engineer but the
thought of having to expend
my creative energy on things
that make practical everyday
life even more refined, with a
loathsome capital gain as the
goal, was unbearable to me.”
– Albert Einstein

“The problem in this business
isn’t to keep people from
stealing your ideas; it's
making them steal your
ideas!”
– Howard Aiken

“The fewer moving parts, the
better." "Exactly. No truer
words were ever spoken in
the context of engineering.”
– Christian Cantrell

“Engineering is not only study
of 45 subjects but it is moral
studies of intellectual life.”
– Prakhar Srivastav

“Are engineers better at business than
business people? It’s debatable. Business
people certainly seems to have bigger houses,
drive fancier cars, wear nicer clothes and have
better looking mates. Engineers lack the time
management skills to spend that kind of
money. They waste all their time inventing
ways to make the most money in the quickest,
most efficient way possible. And then when
they figure it out, they optimize the process.”
– Raul Perez

“It is exciting to discover
electrons and figure out the
equations that govern their
movement; it is boring to use
those principles to design
electric can openers. From
here on out, it's all can
openers.”
– Neal Stephenson

“Math is my Passion.
Engineering is my
Profession.”
– Wilfred James Dolor

“Great triumphs of
engineering genius—the
locomotive, the truss bridge,
the steel rail— ... are rather
invention than engineering
proper.”
– Arthur Mellen Wellington

“It is hardly surprising that the
malodorous field of
garbology has not attained
the popularity of rocket
science, oil exploration, or
brain surgery.”
– Hans Y. Tammemagi

“First rule of engineering;
beware prototypes. Along
with, avoid anything made by
an engineer who doesn't have
all his own fingers.”
– Simon R. Green

“The trick to having good
ideas is not to sit around in
glorious isolation and try to
think big thoughts. The trick
is to get more parts on the
table.”
– Steven Johnson

“[John] Kobak explained, 'The
way you learn anything is that
something fails, and you
figure out how not to have it
fail again.”
– Robert S. Arrighi

“There’s nothing I believe in
more strongly than getting
young people interested in
science and engineering, for
a better tomorrow, for all
humankind.”
– Bill Nye

“Engineering stimulates the
mind. Kids get bored easily.
They have got to get out and
get their hands dirty: make
things, dismantle things, fix
things. When the schools can
offer that, you’ll have an
engineer for life.”
– Bruce Dickinson

“Projects we have completed
demonstrate what we know -
future projects decide what
we will learn.”
– Dr Mohsin Tiwana

“I don’t spend my time
pontificating about
high-concept things; I spend
my time solving engineering
and manufacturing
problems.”
– Elon Musk

“A good scientist is a person
with original ideas. A good
engineer is a person who
makes a design that works
with as few ideas as
possible. There are no prima
donnas in engineering.”
– Freeman Dyson

“To the optimist, the glass is
half full. To the pessimist, the
glass is half empty. To the
engineer, the glass is twice
as big as it needs to be.
– Unknown

“Manufacturing is more than
just putting parts together.
It’s coming up with ideas,
testing principles and
perfecting the engineering as
well as final assembly."
– James Dyson

“The human foot is a
masterpiece of engineering
and a work of art.”
– Leonardo da Vinci

“What we usually consider as
impossible are simply
engineering problems…
there’s no law of physics
preventing them.”
– Michio Kaku

“When you want to know
how things really work, study
them when they’re coming
apart.”
– William Gibson

“The most important thing is
to keep the most important
thing the most important
thing.”
– Donald P Coduto

“A common mistake that
people make when trying to
design something completely
foolproof is to underestimate
the ingenuity of complete
fools.”
– Douglas Adams

“Aeroplanes are not designed by science,
but by art in spite of some pretence and
humbug to the contrary. I do not mean to
suggest that engineering can do without
science, on the contrary, it stands on
scientific foundations, but there is a big gap
between scientific research and the
engineering product which has to be bridged
by the art of the engineer.”
– British Engineer to the Royal Aeronautical
Society, 1922.

“ A great bridge is a great monument
which should serve to make known the
splendour and genius of a nation; one
should not occupy oneself with efforts to
perfect it architecturally, for taste is
always susceptible to change, but to
conserve always in its form and
decoration the character of solidity
which is proper.”
– Jean Peronnet

“An engineer is someone
who is good with figures, but
doesn't have the personality
of an accountant.”
– An Arts graduate's view of
engineers

“ Architects and engineers
are among the most
fortunate of men since they
build their own monuments
with public consent, public
approval and often public
money.”
– John Prebble

“Engineering is the art of
modelling materials we do not
wholly understand, into shapes
we cannot precisely analyse so
as to withstand forces we
cannot properly assess, in such
a way that the public has no
reason to suspect the extent of
our ignorance.”
– Dr AR Dykes

“Engineering problems are
under-defined, there are many
solutions, good, bad and
indifferent. The art is to arrive
at a good solution. This is a
creative activity, involving
imagination, intuition and
deliberate choice.”
– Ove Arup

“Engineering refers to the
practice of organizing the
design and construction [and,
I would add operation] of any
artifice which transforms the
physical world around us to
meet some recognized need.”
– GFC Rogers

“Engineering ... to define
rudely but not inaptly, is the
art of doing that well with one
dollar, which any bungler can
do with two after a fashion.”
– Arthur Mellen Wellington

“Engineers ... are not mere
technicians and should not
approve or lend their name to
any project that does not
promise to be beneficent to
man and the advancement of
civilization.”
– John Fowler

“Engineers ... are not superhuman. They
make mistakes in their assumptions, in
their calculations, in their conclusions.
That they make mistakes is forgivable;
that they catch them is imperative. Thus it
is the essence of modern engineering not
only to be able to check one's own work
but also to have one's work checked and
to be able to check the work of others.”
– Henry Petroski

“I take the vision which comes from dreams and apply the magic of
science and mathematics, adding the heritage of my profession and
my knowledge of nature's materials to create a design.
I organise the efforts and skills of my fellow workers employing the
capital of the thrifty and the products of many industries, and
together we work toward our goal undaunted by hazards and
obstacles.
And when we have completed our task all can see that the dreams
and plans have materialised for the comfort and welfare of all.
I am an Engineer, I serve mankind, by making dreams come true.”
– Anon (supposedly found pinned to a site hut during the construction
of the Konkan railway)

“Experience serves not only
to confirm theory, but differs
from it without disturbing it, it
leads to new truths which
theory only has not been able
to reach.”
– Dalembert

“From the laying out of a line
of a tunnel to its final
completion, the work may be
either a series of experiments
made at the expense of the
proprietors of the project, or a
series of judicious
applications of the results of
previous experience.”
– HS Drinker

“Go for civil engineering,
because civil engineering is
the branch of engineering
which teaches you the most
about managing people.
Managing people is a skill
which is very, very useful and
applies almost regardless of
what you do.”
– Sir John Harvey Jones

“I am an old man now, and when
I die and go to Heaven there are
two matters on which I hope for
enlightenment. One is quantum
electrodynamics and the other is
the turbulent motion of fluids.
And about the former I am rather
more optimistic.”
– Sir Horace Lamb

“[I am] opposed to the laying down of
rules or conditions to be observed in
the construction of bridges lest the
progress of improvement tomorrow
might be embarrassed or shackled by
recording or registering as law the
prejudices or errors of today.”
– Isambard Kingdom Brunel

“It is a great profession. There is the satisfaction
of watching a figment of the imagination emerge
through the aid of science to a plan on paper.
Then it moves to realization in stone or metal or
energy. Then it brings jobs and homes to men.
Then it elevates the standards of living and adds
to the comforts of life. That is the engineer's high
privilege.”
– Herbert Hoover

“No doubt as years go by people forget which
engineer did it, even if they ever knew. Or some
politician puts his name on it. Or they credit it to
some promoter who used other peoples money
with which to finance it. But the engineer himself
looks back at the unending stream of goodness
that flows from his successes with satisfactions
that few professions may know. And the verdict
of his fellow professionals is all the accolade he
wants.”
– Herbert Hoover

“Let him not be grasping nor
have his mind preoccupied with
... receiving perquisites, but let
him with dignity keep up his
position by establishing a good
reputation. No work can be
rightly done without honesty and
incorruptibility.”
– Vitruvius

“One has to watch out for
engineers - they begin with
the sewing machine and end
up with the atomic bomb.”
– Marcel Pagnol, Critiques
des Critiques

“The history of engineering is
really the history of
breakages, and of learning
from those breakages. I was
taught at college 'the
engineer learns most on the
scrapheap'.”
– CA Claremont, Spanning
Space

“The major difference
between a thing that might go
wrong and a thing that
cannot possibly go wrong is
that when a thing that cannot
possibly go wrong goes
wrong, it usually turns out to
be impossible to get at and
repair.”
– Douglas Adams

“The well being of the world largely depends
upon the work of the engineer. There is a great
future and unlimited scope for the profession;
new works of all kinds are and will be required
in every country, and for a young man of
imagination and keenness I cannot conceive a
more attractive profession. Imagination is
necessary as well as scientific knowledge.”
– Sir William Halcrow

“There can be little doubt
that in many ways the story
of bridge building is the story
of civilisation. By it we can
readily measure an important
part of a people's progress.”
– Franklin D Roosevelt

“We shape our buildings,
thereafter they shape us.”
– Winston Churchill

“When engineers and
quantity surveyors discuss
aesthetics and architects
study what cranes do we are
on the right road.”
– Ove Arup

“The life work of the engineer
consists in the systematic
application of natural forces
and the systematic
development of natural
resources in the service of
man.”
– Harry Walter Tyler

“The scientist discovers a
new type of material or
energy and the engineer
discovers a new use for it.”
– Gordon Lindsay Glegg

“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?”
– Gustave Eiffel

“A scientist can discover a
new star but he cannot make
one. He would have to ask an
engineer to do it for him.”
– Gordon Lindsay Glegg

“Engineering is not merely knowing and
being knowledgeable, like a walking
encyclopedia; engineering is not merely
analysis; engineering is not merely the
possession of the capacity to get elegant
solutions to non-existent engineering
problems; engineering is practicing the art
of the organising forces of technological
change… Engineers operate at the interface
between science and society.”
– Gordon Stanley Brown

“Engineering is quite
different from science.
Scientists try to understand
nature. Engineers try to make
things that do not exist in
nature. Engineers stress
invention.”
– Yuan-Cheng Fung

“Engineering is the art of
directing the great sources of
power in nature for the use
and convenience of man.”
– Thomas Tredgold

“Engineering is the
professional and systematic
application of science to the
efficient utilisation of natural
resources to produce wealth."
– Theodore Jesse Hoover

“Engineering or technology is
the making of things that did
not previously exist, whereas
science is the discovering of
things that have long
existed."
– David Billington

“I’ve never seen a job being
done by a
five-hundred-person
engineering team that
couldn’t be done better by
fifty people.”
– C Gordon Bell

“No one wants to learn by
mistakes, but we cannot
learn enough from successes
to go beyond the state of the
art.”
– Henry Petroski

“Science can amuse and
fascinate us all, but it is
engineering that changes the
world.”
– Isaac Asimov

“Scientists study the world
as it is, engineers create the
world that never has been.”
– Theodore von Karman

“The story of civilisation is, in
a sense, the story of
engineering - that long and
arduous struggle to make the
forces of nature work for
man’s good.”
– Lyon Sprague DeCamp

“Manufacturing, science and
engineering are…incredibly
creative. I’d venture to say
more so than creative
advertising agencies and
things that are known as the
creative industries.”
– Sir James Dyson

“Men build bridges and throw
railroads across deserts, and
yet they contend successfully
that the job of sewing on a
button is beyond them.”
– Heywood Broun

“The ideal engineer is a composite…
He is not a scientist, he is not a
mathematician, he is not a sociologist
or a writer, but he may use the
knowledge and techniques of any or
all of these disciplines in solving
engineering problems.”
– NW Dougherty

“Engineering is the science of
economy, of conserving energy, kinetic
and potential, provided and stored up
by nature for the use of man. It is the
business of engineering to utilise this
energy to the best advantage, so that
there may be the least possible
waste.”
– William A Smith

“The goal of science and
engineering is to build better
mousetraps. The goal of
nature is to build better
mice.”
– Unknown

“Strive for perfection in
everything you do. Take the
best that exists and make it
better. When it does not exist,
design it.”
– Sir Henry Royce

“The engineer has been, and
is, a maker of history.”
– James Kip Finch

“You see, my ambition was
not to confound the
engineering world but simply
to create a beautiful piece of
art.”
– Kit Williams

“A good engineer thinks in
reverse and asks himself
about the stylistic
consequences of the
components and systems he
proposes.”
– Helmut Jahn

“Normal people believe that
if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Engineers believe that if it
ain’t broke, it doesn’t have
enough features yet.”
– Scott Adams

“An engineer is someone
who washes his hands before
going to the toilet.”
– Anon

“A theory may be so rich in
descriptive possibilities that it
can be made to fit any data.”
– Phillip Johnson-Laird

“Improvement makes strait
roads: but the crooked roads
without improvement are
roads of genius.”
– William Blake

“Knowing there is a structure,
hidden or felt, to the random
gives pleasure.”
– Cecil Balmond

“The engineer’s first problem
in any design situation is to
discover what the problem
really is.”
– Unknown

“You never change things by
fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a
new model that makes the
existing model obsolete.”
– Buckminster Fuller

“Gradually people come to
you to buy surprise, and the
thing that’s nicest about it is
that when people come to
buy surprise, I have no idea of
what I’m going to give them
either.”
– Peter Rice

“Any idiot can build a bridge
that stands, but it takes an
engineer to build a bridge that
barely stands.”
– Unknown

“Whenever you are asked if
you can do a job, tell ‘em
‘Certainly I can!’ Then get
busy and find out how to do
it.”
– Theodore Roosevelt

“Engineers have more words
for screwing up than the Inuit
have words for snow.”
– Pierce Nichols

“At that time (1909) the chief
engineer was almost always
the chief test pilot as well.
That had the fortunate result
of eliminating poor
engineering early in aviation.”
– Igor Sikorsky

“I guess the question I'm asked the most
often is: "When you were sitting in that
capsule listening to the count-down, how
did you feel?" Well, the answer to that one
is easy. I felt exactly how you would feel if
you were getting ready to launch and knew
you were sitting on top of two million parts
-- all built by the lowest bidder on a
government contract.”
– John Glenn

“We, the unwilling, led by the
unknowing, are doing the
impossible for the ungrateful.
We have done so much, for
so long, with so little, we are
now qualified to do anything
with nothing."
– Unknown

“Perfection is achieved, not
when there is nothing more to
add, but when there is
nothing left to take away.”
– Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“I have not failed, but found
1000 ways to not make a
light bulb.”
– Thomas Edison

“If not for the compulsions of
engineers, mankind would
never have seen the wheel,
settling instead for the
trapezoid because some
Neanderthal in marketing
convinced everybody it had
great braking ability.”
– Scott Adams

“The engineer is a mediator between
the philosopher and the working
mechanic and, like an interpreter
between two foreigners must
understand the language of both,
hence the absolute necessity of
possessing both practical and
theoretical knowledge.”
– Henry Palmer

“When I am working on a
problem, I never think about
beauty but when I have
finished, if the solution is not
beautiful, I know it is wrong.”
– R Buckminster Fuller

“I am, and ever will be, a white-socks,
pocket-protector, nerdy engineer, born
under the second law of
thermodynamics, steeped in steam
tables, in love with free-body
diagrams, transformed by Laplace and
propelled by compressible flow.”
– Neil Armstrong

"Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub; it is the center hole
that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel; it is the space within that makes
it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room; it is the holes which
make it useful.
Therefore benefit comes from what is there; usefulness
comes from what is not."
– Excerpt from the Tao Te Ching

"The scientific man does not aim at an
immediate result. He does not expect
that his advanced ideas will be readily
taken up. His work is like that of the
planter - for the future. His duty is to
lay the foundation for those who are to
come, and point the way. He lives and
labors and hopes.”
– Nikola Tesla

“There is no demand for
women engineers, as such,
as there are for women
doctors; but there’s always a
demand for anyone who can
do a good piece of work.”
– Edith Clarke

“The world would be a better
place if more engineers, like
me, hated technology. The
stuff I design, if I’m
successful, nobody will ever
notice. Things will just work,
and be self-managing.”
– Radia Pearlman

101 Engineering Quotes from the Minds of Innovators - WorkflowMax

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