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Knowing there is a structure, hidden or felt, to the random gives pleasure.
Sep 17, 2025
What we usually consider as impossible are simply engineering problems... there's no law of physics preventing them.
All we know about the new economic world is that nations which train engineers will prevail over those which train lawyers. No nation has ever sued its way to greatness.
No one wants to learn from mistakes, but we cannot learn enough from successes to go beyond the state of the art.
Scientists study the world as it is, engineers create the world that never has been.
The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art.
When you want to know how things really work, study them when they're coming apart.
The story of civilization is, in a sense, the story of engineering-that long and arduous struggle to make the forces of nature work for man's good.
Strive for perfection in everything you do.
Engineering is the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man.
Scientists dream about doing great things. Engineers do them.
Scientists investigate that which already is; Engineers create that which has never been.
Take the best that exists and make it better.
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
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. There are no prima donnas in engineering.
I've never seen a job being done by a five-hundred-person engineering team that couldn't be done better by fifty people.
Manufacturing is more than just putting parts together. It's coming up with ideas, testing principles and perfecting the engineering, as well as final assembly.
When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
One man's magic is another man's gluey torture session.
One man's 'magic' is another man's engineering. 'Supernatural' is a null word.
Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems.
Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing.
Engineering is not merely knowing and being knowledgeable, like a walking encyclopedia; engineering is not merely analysis; engineering is not merely the possession of the capacity to get elegant solutions to non-existent engineering problems; engineering is practicing the art of the organizing forces of technological change ... Engineers operate at the interface between science and society.
The most important thing is to keep trying...
It is a great profession. There is the fascination 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 best way to predict the future is to study the past, or prognosticate.
The best way to predict the future is to create it.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
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