Engineer Quotes

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...

The operating management, providing as it does for the care of near thirty thousand miles of railway, is far more important than that for construction in which there is comparatively little doing.

In course of time the Brothers Cowper removed the manufacture of their printing machines from London, to Manchester. There they found skilled and energetic workmen, ready to carry their plans into effect.

The increase of this efficiency is essentially the problem of the manager, and the amount to which it can be increased by proper study is, in most cases, so great as to be almost incredible.

Advancement of the human factor in industry... varies so much that unless we use measurement and abide by the results, there is no possibility of repeating the process accurately and efficiently at will, or of predicting and controlling the future conditions that assure that advancement.

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.

For any given set of objects it is impossible to say that no interrelationships exist.

The measurement of the angles was made by Mr. J. E. Hilgard, whose zeal and the ability with which he has discharged these duties deserve notice here, as they have received it in the reports of the chief of his party.

Julius Erasmus Hilgard

To ordinary minds all creation is mystery; to cultivated minds there is much that is not quite inexplicable.

The greatest risk we face in software development is that of overestimating our own knowledge.

Throughout history, the really fundamental changes in societies have come about not from the dictates of governments and the results of battles, but through vast numbers of people changing their minds, sometimes only a little bit.

Some of the biggest changes have been in the process of generating business strategies—what I call strategy work. Around 1980, the received wisdom was to decentralize into business units, which would each generate a strategic plan. These plans were then amalgamated up the hierarchy, in some portfolio way, for senior management. That approach has all but disappeared, and we've seen a dramatic recentralization of strategy work.

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.

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

To you, of right, these pages must be inscribed, the fountain of their best thoughts, not as mere praise, but for the instruction of others, to record the charm of perfect companionship, proved by your example; the instinctive homage even of brutes before the magic of an amiable and generous heart, without a selfish trace... Were all hearts tuned like yours, an appeal to human justice would not be needed: — Then to your name a fitter title might be inscribed — the Wrongs of Animals ceased for ever, the dubious vestiges of Eden might become the certain foot-prints of our dialy practice; and cruelty and suffering known no more.

The purpose of the Reichsautobahnen is to become the roads of Adolf Hitler.

Some people will say that a respect for regulations is essential and that engineers need not check the hypotheses on which they are based. This is a convenient theory, but a false one. Men who draw up regulations can be wrong like other men.

Eugène Freyssinet

First law: The pesticide paradox. Every method you use to prevent or find bugs leaves a residue of subtler bugs against which those methods are ineffective.

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.

All benefits of the sales of the American version of this book that I wrote... will be for the 90th Division Veterans Association, now and forever.

The art of the novel, however, has fallen into such a state of stagnation - a lassitude acknowledged and discussed by the whole of critical opinion - that it is hard to imagine such an art can survive for long without some radical change. To many, the solution seems simple enough: such a change being impossible, the art of the novel is dying.

Alain Robbe-Grillet

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

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

Michael A. Arbib

Mathematics higher than the calculus is of small value to the engineer, except possibly as a training for the mind...

John Alexander Low Waddell

The fifth century BC historian Herodotus called Egypt 'the gift of the Nile'. The Egyptians themselves went a lot further. They claimed that their sacred river had its source among the stars.

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