Engineer Quotes

As the component parts of all new machines may be said to be old[,] it is a nice discriminating judgment, which discovers that a particular arrangement will produce a new and desired effect.... Therefore, the mechanic should sit down among levers, screws, wedges, wheels, etc. like a poet among the letters of the alphabet, considering them as the exhibition of his thoughts; in which a new arrangement transmits a new idea to the world.

To define it rudely but not inaptly, [engineering] is the art of doing that well with one dollar which any bungler can do with two after a fashion.

Arthur M. Wellington

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

So, here we are - all part of this great hologram called Creation, which is everybody else's SELF.It's all a cosmic play, and there is nothing but you!

It's a shame that we humans are never able to pull in the same direction... [n]ot even when confronted by infinity.

What loss is there in dignity, what worry is there of failure?

Modern science constitutes a method for understanding and modifying the world but has no inherent direction, whereas modern religion describes a messianic world view but lacks a useful method to bring about this state of affairs.

Frederick Grinnell

In many ways, unexpected results are what have most inspired my photography.

Harold Eugene Edgerton

There are four purposes of improvement: easier, better, faster, and cheaper. These four goals appear in the order of priority.

By long-standing tradition, I take this opportunity to savage other
designers in the thin disguise of good, clean fun.

Learning to inhibit unwanted contractions of muscles that function without, or in spite of, our will, is the main task in coordinated action.

Moshé Feldenkrais

Java development without a little heresy would be a dull place, and a dangerous one.

We offer them mediocrity while calling it magic. We offer them the illusion of intelligent software, seducing them into surrendering the task of thinking to the machine. Of course, the machine isn't thinking, which means that nobody is.

Larry Constantine

When it's all over, you'll realize that the answer is already within you.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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...

Remote Sensing is defined as the acquisition of information about an object without being in physical contact with it.

I have no knowledge other than that gained through my own eyes.

Vannoccio Biringuccio

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

The designs we see in nature are not the result of chance. They rise naturally, spontaneously, because they enhance access to flow…

I would say that failure to terraform Mars constitutes failure to live up to our human nature and a betrayal of our responsibility as members of the community of life itself