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Favourite Engineering quotes.

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Involute Curve17/09/2014 05:20:06
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337 forum posts
107 photos

Here are a few I've come across....

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. (Unknown)

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An engineer dies and reports to the pearly gates. St. Peter checks his dossier and says, "Ah, you're an engineer -- you're in the wrong place."

So, the engineer reports to the gates of hell and is let in. Pretty soon, the engineer gets dissatisfied with the level of comfort in hell, and starts designing and building improvements. After awhile, they've got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and the engineer is a pretty popular guy.

One day, God calls Satan up on the telephone and says with a sneer, "So, how's it going down there in hell?"

Satan replies, "Hey, things are going great. We've got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and there's no telling what this engineer is going to come up with next."

God replies, "What??? You've got an engineer? That's a mistake -- he should never have gotten down there; send him up here."

Satan says, "No way. I like having an engineer on the staff, and I'm keeping him."

God says, "Send him back up here or I'll sue."

Satan laughs uproariously and answers, "Yeah, right. And just where are YOU going to get a lawyer?" (Unknown)

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The most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing. (Unknown)

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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. (Unknown)

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and my personal favourite

"Engineering: Combining art & science to create artefacts from dreams". (Henry Petroski)

Bob Murray17/09/2014 06:09:28
24 forum posts

"There comes a time in the life of any project when you have to kill all the engineers and put the darn thing into production."

"Civil engineers build targets. Mechanical engineers build weapons."

"It's a good thing mechanical engineers invented the wheelbarrow. It keeps civil engineers from having to transport dirt in their pockets."

"If you tell an engineer that it can't be done, he WILL do it just to prove you wrong!" (Just like most machinists!)

I'm a recovering engineer doing the twelve steps, but I do backslide on occasionlaugh

Michael Gilligan17/09/2014 08:04:11
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23121 forum posts
1360 photos

"If you can't make it right, make it adjustable"

( Anon. )

.

"To invent, you need a good imagination and pile of junk"

( Thomas Edison )

.

"If a job's worth doing, it's worth working-to-death"

( my Dad; in his best Brummie accent, and with just the right note of sarcasm 

.

MichaelG.

Edit: the smiley was just one of those accidental ones ... but it works

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 17/09/2014 08:07:20

Eric Cox17/09/2014 08:47:32
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557 forum posts
38 photos

Laws of engineering

Any pipe cut to length will be too short

An electric motor first installed always rotates in the wrong direction

Inter changeable parts won't

Any errors no matter how small add up to cause the maximum damage.

mick17/09/2014 08:55:27
421 forum posts
49 photos

After I had been handed a particularly nasty and difficult job to do by the workshop foreman, I said to an older machinist "I must have done something wrong in a pervious incarnation" the sage like reply was "all engineers did something very wrong in their previous incarnation!"

Neil Wyatt17/09/2014 09:17:18
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19226 forum posts
749 photos
86 articles

Good. Cheap. Quick. - Choose one.

Simplificate and add lightness.

If it looks right, it probably is right.

Good engineering solutions look beautiful. Bad ones are often ugly.

Neil

Brian Wood17/09/2014 09:18:21
2742 forum posts
39 photos

The one I like is the General Description of Engineering

" Engineering is all about making holes in metal and then filling those holes with other metal"

I read this somewhere

Brian

maurice bennie17/09/2014 09:40:24
164 forum posts
1 photos

Hi all Measure twice cut once . From my grandfather . He died 70 years ago! and I still follow his rule .

WALLACE17/09/2014 09:52:56
304 forum posts
17 photos
'To err is human, to forgive is by design'.






W.
NJH17/09/2014 10:14:08
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2314 forum posts
139 photos

Old ( and really awful!)

Six munce ugo I koodunt even spel injineer and now I are wun!

Ian S C17/09/2014 11:20:31
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7468 forum posts
230 photos

Think three times. Measure twice. Cut once.

Ian S C

Bill Robley17/09/2014 13:34:58
21 forum posts
1 photos

Two rules of life: Constants aren't, Variables won't.

colin hawes17/09/2014 14:33:35
570 forum posts
18 photos

The impossible just takes longer. Colin

John McNamara17/09/2014 14:56:00
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1377 forum posts
133 photos

Frank LLoyd Wright the Architect responded complaint about Roof Leaks, that he had not worked on the design hard enough unless there were a few leaks.

This video deals with Wright versus the engineers and the elements.

**LINK**

Regards
John

Jon Gibbs17/09/2014 16:48:53
750 forum posts

An engineer is someone who can make for 10 cents what any fool can make for a dollar.

Nigel McBurney 117/09/2014 19:50:47
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1101 forum posts
3 photos

comments from a brumagen born toolroom manager who saw sense and came south

" I always thought swarf was blue until I came south"

"too many keyboard engineers nowadays"

Martin Cottrell17/09/2014 20:17:24
297 forum posts
18 photos

"Time was invented to stop everything happening at once." Anon

" When working at the frontiers of science, you very often discover the inadequacies of your understanding!" I heard this one recently but can't remember who quoted it.

"if it aint broke, don't fix it!" My Dad at various times in my childhood while taking stuff apart to see how it worked.

"Grease is cheaper than bearings." My Grandad after I'd knackered a farm implement having forgotten to grease before using.

"An ounce of lubrication is worth a ton of pressure." Grandad again, also a great nudge nudge wink wink one liner often quoted from my days in the Young Farmers, happy days!

Regards Martin.

Bubble17/09/2014 20:47:10
75 forum posts
6 photos

"This is fine in practice, but will it work in theory?" (Mechanical Test Engineer)

Jim

DrDave17/09/2014 21:10:46
264 forum posts
52 photos

For the Aeronautical Engineers (Quoted by AJ Coombe):

"Crinkle, crinkle, little spar,

Strained beyond the yield point far.

Up above the world so high,

Bits & pieces in the sky"

And a re-take of an old one by an F1 colleague:

"If it looks right, you are not looking hard enough"

Boiler Bri17/09/2014 21:37:12
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856 forum posts
212 photos

Oh no not on here as well, my inbox gets full of this stuff, not good guys.

Brian

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