British Engineer Quotes

Charles Babbage

Charles George Gordon

Oliver Heaviside

William John Macquorn Rankine

Nevil Shute

George Cayley

Thomas Savery

I've got tears in my ears from lyin' on my back
In my bed while I cry over you.
And the tears in my ears, they're off the beaten track
Since you said "It's goodbye, we are through".

The world about us can be looked at in a variety of ways. One way is to see the world as made up from many interacting systems: weather, societal, economic, ecological, floral, faunal, tectonic plate, oceanic, and so on. This is very much a connected view of the world: nothing is isolated and totally independent; everything is part of something bigger, and everything comprises many interacting parts — subsystems.

Perhaps it would be better for science, that all criticism should be avowed.

Charles Babbage

There is an unfailing joy in identifying oneself with the actual sites where great things happened long ago. It appeals to a very human trait in all of us.

Ralph Alger Bagnold

The modern engineer's primary concern should be that of designing and creating the things that society needs, and the spark of genius must be nurtured and developed to the maximum extent.

Eric A. Walker (engineer)

Engineering is the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man.

Thomas Tredgold

God of his Infinite goodness (if we will but take notice of his goodness unto this Nation) hath made this Country a very Granary for the supplying of Smiths with Iron, Cole, and Lime made with cole, which hath much supplied these men with Com also of late 5 and from these men a great part, not only of this Island, but also of his Majestie's other Kingdoms and Territories, with Iron wares have their supply, and Wood in these parts almost exhausted, although it were of late a mighty woodland country.

I love the drawing board because most of the work I do is of half scale, so I can have the complete car in front of me, whereas the CAD system limits you to the size of the screen.

There can be no absolute reality, there can be no absolute truth.

I am a chisel which cuts the wood; the Carpenter directs it. If I lose my edge, He must sharpen me; if he puts me aside and takes another, it is His own good will. None are indispensable to Him. He will do his work with a straw equally as well.

Charles George Gordon

Remember that the Clerget lands very fast, at over forty miles an hour, and with that great engine in the nose the tail was light. Watch it... Lovely.

I am well convinced that Aerial Navigation will form a most prominent feature in the progress of civilization.

On owning a commercial TV franchise in Britain:

Like having a licence to print your own money.

He made a million pounds in the first year

Christopher Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson

I only just hint this to show what use this engine may be put to in working of mills, especially where coals are cheap. I have only this to urge, that water in its fall from any determinate height, has simply a force answerable and equal to the force that raises it.

Methods by which engineers stabilise their mechanisms suggest analogous possibilities for stabilising economic systems.

Our knowledge must always be limited, but the knowable is limitless. The greater the sphere of our knowledge the greater the surface of contact with our infinite ignorance.

There are men of a certain type of mind who are never wearied with gibing at mathematics, at mathematicians, and at mathematical methods of inquiry. It goes almost without saying that these men have themselves little mathematical bent.

Oliver Heaviside

In the beginning was the word
WORD
WORE
GORE
GONE
GENE
and by the mutations came the gene.

Michael A. Arbib

If I had my way... there wouldn't be a single lion or tiger in captivity anywhere in the world. They never take to it. They're never happy. They never settle down... You can see it in their eyes...

A party of astronomers went measuring of the earth, And forty million meters they took to be its girth; Five hundred million inches, though, go through from pole to pole; So lets stick to inches, feet, and yards, and the good old three-foot rule.

William John Macquorn Rankine