Quotes

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Strive for perfection in everything you do. Take the best that exists and make it better. When it does not exist, design it.

Albert Einstein

Quotes

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 (Addressing the Institution of Civil Engineers)

Give me a place to stand on and I will move the earth.

Pappus of Alexandria

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Leonardo Da Vinci

Scientists dream about doing great things. Engineers do them.

James A. Michener (U.S. novelist and short-story writer, 1907-1997)

A bridge is built for us to pass over; it is a work of utility, and which should endure. It should be in keeping with its object, solid, clean, simple, well executed without vain ornament.

Paul Sejourne Grandes Voutes

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

Douglas Adams

A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as possible.

Freeman Dyson

A great bridge is a great monument which should serve to make known the splendor 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

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

Civil Engineering is the art of directing the great sources of Power in Nature for the use and convenience of man; being that practical application of the most important principles of natural Philosophy which has in a considerable degree realized the anticipations of Bacon, and changed the aspect and state of affairs in the whole world. The most important object of Civil Engineering is to improve the means of production and of traffic in states, both for external and internal Trade. This applied in the construction and management of Roads - Bridges - Rail Roads - Aqueducts - Canals - river navigation - Docks, and storehouses for the convenience of internal intercourse and exchange; - and in the construction of Ports - Harbours - Moles - Breakwaters - and Lighthouses, and in the navigation by artificial Power for the purposes of commerce.

Thomas Tredgold

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

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

If a builder builds a house for a man and does not make its construction firm and the house collapses and causes the death of the owner of the house - that builder shall be put to death. If it destroys property, he shall restore whatever it destroyed, and because he did not make the house firm he shall rebuild the house which collapsed at his own expense. If a builder builds a house for a man and does not make its construction meet the requirement and a wall falls - that builder shall strengthen the wall at his own expense.

The Code of Hammurabi, c. 2250 BC

It takes an engineer to undertake the training of an engineer and not, as often happens, a theoretical engineer who is clever on a blackboard with mathematical formulae but useless as far as production is concerned.

The Rev EB Evans - Letter to Frederick Handley Page

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 De Architectura

Nothing is so inspiring as seeing big works well laid out and planned and a real engineering organization.

Frederick Handley Page

No village or man shall be forced to build bridges at river banks, except those who ought to do so by custom and law.

Chapter 23 of Magna Carta

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

The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic diagram.

Thomas Koenig

Sir William Halcrow

Therefore O students study mathematics and do not build without foundations.

Leonardo Da Vinci

When engineers and quantity surveyors discuss aesthetics and architects study what cranes do we are on the right road.

Ove Arup 1980

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.
The great liability of the engineer compared to men of other professions is that his works are out in the open where all can see them. His acts, step by step, are in hard substance. He cannot bury his mistakes in the grave like the doctors. He cannot argue them into thin air or blame the judge like the lawyers. He cannot, like the architects, cover his failures with trees and vines. He cannot, like the politicians, screen his shortcomings by blaming his opponents and hope that the people will forget. The engineer simply cannot deny that he did it. If his works do not work, he is damned. That is the phantasmagoria that haunts his nights and dogs his days. He comes from the job at the end of the day resolved to calculate it again. He wakes in the night in a cold sweat and puts something on paper that looks silly in the morning. All day he shivers at the thought of the bugs which will inevitably appear to jolt his smooth consummation.
On the other hand, unlike the doctor his is not a life among the weak. Unlike the soldier, destruction is not his purpose. Unlike the lawyer, quarrels are not his daily bread. To the engineer falls the job of clothing the bare bones of science with life, comfort and hope.
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

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Only when you climb the highest mountain, will you be aware of the vastness that lies around you.

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)