Top 543 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Engineers

A murderer is nothing but an enzyme. In the end he does nothing but catalyze an inevitable process. As a good precursor, in fact, he anticipates it.

Listen to your customers, not your competitors.

If people can see Earth from up here, see it without those borders, see it without any differences in race or religion, they would have a completely different perspective. Because when you see it from that angle, you cannot think of your home or your country. All you can see is one Earth...

Science fiction does not remain fiction for long. And certainly not on the Internet.

The workers should take over the factories, and shut down Boeing's profit-making machine.

Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.

College is the grinding machine of the Mathematical Establishment, a conveyor belt that takes individuals from one cookie cutter to another so that the product comes within tight control limits out of the assembly line.

Computer system analysis is like child-rearing; you can do grievous damage, but you cannot ensure success.

Why should I refuse a good dinner simply because I don't understand the digestive processes involved?

I'm just a music fan. I like pretty much all types of music, and I feel like I can get something out of everything. It just makes work a lot more fun whenever you're working on different things all the times and usually once I work with a band I usually will want to work with them again, just because we become good friends.

Was I a criminal? No. I was a good member of society. Only my society and the one making the laws are different.

The next 30 days are going to pass whether you like it or not, so why not think about something you have always wanted to try and give it a shot for the next 30 days?

For decades engineers have stood accused that their buildings do not have any cultural value. We have attempted to liberate engineering of this accusation.

Hate engenders hate. Hate spreads to nations, and from this cause we have devastating wars. In the contemplation of these wars and their origins there is something humiliating to our human race. No Hymn of Hate can ever be a paean of humanity.

We are living through one of the most fundamental shifts in history- a change in the actual belief structure of Western society. No economic, political, or military power can compare with the power of a change of mind. By deliberately changing their images of reality, people are changing the world.

Automating a mess yields an automated mess.

Without a standard there is no logical basis for making a decision or taking action.

The function of good software is to make the complex appear to be simple.

Suddenly, we humans - a recently arrived species, no longer subject to the checks and balances inherent in nature - have grown in population, technology and intelligence to a position of terrible power.

I accidentally produced a Willow Smith track!

Agility is the ability to adapt and respond to change … agile organizations view change as an opportunity, not a threat.

Humans are not disabled. A person can never be broken. Our built environment, our technologies, are broken and disabled. We the people need not accept our limitations, but can transcend disability through technological innovation.

GREED AND COMPETITION ARE NOT THE RESULT OF IMMUTABLE HUMAN TEMPERMENT…GREED AND FEAR OF SCARCITY ARE IN FACT BEING CREATED AND AMPLIFIED …THE DIRECT CONSEQUENCE IS THAT WE HAVE TO FIGHT WITH EACH OTHER IN ORDER TO SURVIVE

Discrepancy between theory and practice, which in sound physical and mechanical science is a delusion, has a real existence in the minds of men; and that fallacy, through rejected by their judgments, continues to exert and influence over their acts.

Substance should outweigh perfection.

I feel that we are all philosophers, and that those who describe themselves as a 'philosopher' simply do not have a day job to go to.

Mastering is your last chance to fix or address any issues that you may have before giving birth to this beautiful baby album or track.

Science is the study of what Is, Engineering builds what Will Be. The scientist merely explores that which exists, while the engineer creates what has never existed before.

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.

In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first.

Agile methods derive much of their agility by relying on the tacit knowledge embodied in the team, rather than writing the knowleadge down in plans.

If you try to improve the performance of a system of people, machines, and procedures by setting numerical goals for the improvement of individual parts of the system, the system will defeat your efforts and you will pay a price where you least expect it.

Strive for perfection in everything. Take the best that exists and make it better. If it doesn't exist, create it. Accept nothing nearly right or good enough

If there are two or more ways to do something and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.

The smart guy will outsmart himself. The lucky guy will run out of luck. The money guy will never have the desire. But hard work will take you anywhere you want to go.

Postulate 1. All chance systems of causes are not alike in the sense that they enable us to predict the future in terms of the past.

Let us hope that the advent of a successful flying machine, now only dimly foreseen and nevertheless thought to be possible, will bring nothing but good into the world; that it shall abridge distance, make all parts of the globe accessible, bring men into closer relation with each other, advance civilization, and hasten the promised era in which there shall be nothing but peace and goodwill among all men.

Revolutionary in my ideas, liberal in my objectives and conservative in my methods.

Hiring people to write code to sell is not the same as hiring people to design and build durable, usable, dependable software.

If God wanted man to become a spacefaring species, he would have given man a moon.

When in doubt, leave it out.

Risk management is a more realistic term than safety. It implies that hazards are ever-present, that they must be identified, analyzed, evaluated and controlled or rationally accepted.

Nor is the guilt entirely with the warmongers, plutocrats and demagogues. If people permit exploitation and regimentation in any name, they deserve their slavery. A tyrant does not make his tyranny possible. It is made by the people and not otherwise.

The key to understanding complicated things is knowing what not to look at.

There is no such thing as an unsolvable problem.

The American dream of rags to riches is a dream for a reason - it is hard to achieve; were everyone to do it, it wouldn't be a dream but would rather be reality.

No one is ever as shocked and surprised as when the inevitable occurs.

People who talk of outlawing the atomic bomb are mistaken - what needs to be outlawed is war.

Turbochargers are for people who cant build engines.

He who designs an unsafe structure or an inoperative machine is a bad Engineer; he who designs them so that they are safe and operative, but needlessly expensive, is a poor Engineer, and … he who does the best work at the lowest cost sooner or later stands at the top of his profession.

Innovation is the process of turning ideas into manufacturable and marketable form.

New capabilities emerge just by virtue of having smart people with access to state-of-the-art technology.

I ask the reader to remember that what is most obvious may be most worthy of analysis. Fertile vistas may open out when commonplace facts are examined from a fresh point of view.

When we were told it's impossible, we knew it's the right way to be done.

I suffer because my interactions with others do not meet the expectations I did not know I had.

If we must have heroes and wars whereinto make them, there is no war so brilliant as a war with the wrong, no hero so fit to be sung, as he who has gained the bloodless VICTORY of truth and mercy.

Preferences are bad solutions to performance problems.

Inventing is the resolution of technical contradictions.

Men substitute words for reality and then argue about the words.

It is quite possible that the truest and most eloquent art is a successful fusion of both the visible and visionary worlds, each enhancing and reinforcing the other.