52 Inspirational Engineers Quotes For Success In Life

The modern world is full of wonderful opportunities – and sometimes the only thing standing between you and your dream is a lack of motivation. Inventors, innovators, and educators have changed the world with the help of their engineering skills. These are some of the best engineers quotes from the world of engineering.

Famous Engineers Quotes

1. “As engineers, we were going to be in a position to change the world – not just study it.” — Henry Petroski
2. “The scientist discovers a new type of material or energy and the engineer discovers a new use for it.” — Gordon Lindsay Glegg
3. “This job is a great scientific adventure. But it’s also a great human adventure.” — Fabiola Gianotti
4. “Engineers … are not mere technicians and should not approve or lend their name to any project that does not promise to be beneficent to man and the advancement of civilization.” – John Fowler
5. “But remember this, Japanese boy… airplanes are not tools for war. They are not for making money. Airplanes are beautiful dreams. Engineers turn dreams into reality.” – Hayao Miyazaki
6. “Engineering is quite different from science. Scientists try to understand nature. Engineers try to make things that do not exist in nature. Engineers stress invention.” – Yuan-Cheng Fung
7. “The fewer moving parts, the better.” “Exactly. No truer words were ever spoken in the context of engineering.” – Christian Cantrell
8. 
9. “Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems.” – Scott Adams
10. “Strive for perfection in everything you do. Take the best that exists and make it better. When it does not exist, design it.” — Sir Henry Royce

11. “The way to succeed is to double your failure rate.” — Thomas J. Watson

12. “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.” – James Dyson
13. “A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few ideas as possible. There are no prima donnas in engineering.” – Freeman Dyson
14. “I don’t spend my time pontificating about high-concept things; I spend my time-solving engineering and manufacturing problems.” – Elon Musk
15. “Normal people believe that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t have enough features yet.” – Scott Adams
16. “Any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands.” – Anonymous
17. “The ideal engineer is a composite … He is not a scientist, he is not a mathematician, he is not a sociologist or a writer, but he may use the knowledge and techniques of any or all of these disciplines in solving engineering problems.” — Nathan W. Dougherty
18. 
19. “We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.” — Lee Iacocca
20. “To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. – Anonymous
21. “One has to watch out for engineers – they begin with the sewing machine and end up with the atomic bomb.” – Marcel Pagnol, Critiques des Critiques

22. “Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world.” — Isaac Asimov

23. “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’.” – C.A. Claremont, Spanning Space
24. “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.” – Gordon Stanley Brown
25. “What we usually consider as impossible are simply engineering problems… there’s no law of physics preventing them.” – Michio Kaku
26. “Engineering or technology is the making of things that did not previously exist, whereas science is the discovering of things that have long existed.” – David Billington
27. 
28. “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.” – Lyon Sprague DeCamp
29. “Engineering or technology is the making of things that did not previously exist, whereas science is the discovering of things that have long existed.” – David Billington, Engineers Quotes on Technology
30. “Scientists study the world as it is, engineers create the world that never has been.” – Theodore von Karman
31. “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
32. “Engineering is the science of economy, of conserving energy, kinetic and potential, provided and stored up by nature for the use of man. It is the business of engineering to utilize this energy to the best advantage, so that there may be the least possible waste.” – William A. Smith

33. “The engineer has been, and is, a maker of history.” —  James Kip Finch

34. “The engineer is a mediator between the philosopher and the working mechanic and, like an interpreter between two foreigners must understand the language of both, hence the absolute necessity of possessing both practical and theoretical knowledge.” – Henry Palmer
35. “Math is my Passion. Engineering is my Profession.” – Wilfred James Dolor, Engineers Quotes on Maths
36. “Manufacturing, science, and engineering are…incredibly creative. I’d venture to say more so than creative advertising agencies and things that are known as the creative industries.” – Sir James Dyson
37. “The life work of the engineer consists in the systematic application of natural forces and the systematic development of natural resources in the service of man.” – Harry Walter Tyler
38. “Engineering is the art of modeling materials we do not wholly understand, into shapes we cannot precisely analyse so as to withstand forces we cannot properly assess, in such a way that the public has no reason to suspect the extent of our ignorance.” – Dr. AR Dykes
39. 
40. “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.” – G.F.C. Rogers
41. “The goal of science and engineering is to build better mousetraps. The goal of nature is to build better mice.” – Anonymous
42. “There’s nothing I believe in more strongly than getting young people interested in science and engineering, for a better tomorrow, for all humankind.” – Bill Nye

43. “Scientists study the world as it is; engineers create the world that has never been.” — Theodore von Karman

44. “Engineering stimulates the mind. Kids get bored easily. They have got to get out and get their hands dirty: make things, dismantle things, fix things. When the schools can offer that, you’ll have an engineer for life.” – Bruce Dickinson
45. “A good engineer thinks in reverse and asks himself about the stylistic consequences of the components and systems he proposes.” – Helmut Jahn
46. “Engineering is the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man.” – Thomas Tredgold
47. 
48. “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
49. “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, Engineers Quotes on Imagination
50. “Aeroplanes are not designed by science, but by art in spite of some pretense and humbug to the contrary. I do not mean to suggest that engineering can do without science, on the contrary, it stands on scientific foundations, but there is a big gap between scientific research and the engineering product which has to be bridged by the art of the engineer.” – British Engineer to the Royal Aeronautical Society, 1922
51. “Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world.” – Isaac Asimov
52. “Engineering is the professional and systematic application of science to the efficient utilization of natural resources to produce wealth.” – Theodore Jesse Hoover

Comment Your Favourite Engineers Quotes!