When you want to know how things really work, study them when they're coming apart.

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.

We tend to hear much more about the splendors returned than the ships that brought them or the shipwrights. It has always been that way. Even those history books enamored of the voyages of Christopher Columbus do not tell much about the builders of the Nina the Pinta and the Santa Maria or about the principle of the caravel. These spacecraft their designers builders navigators and controllers are examples of what science and engineering set free for well-defined peaceful purposes can accomplish. Those scientists and engineers should be role models for an America seeking excellence and international competitiveness. They should be on our stamps.

Women, on the other hand, had to wield their intellects like a scythe, hacking away against the stubborn underbrush of low expectations.

... singing the strong light works of engineers.

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.

To his and everybody else's way of thinking, you should build a house with your own hands before you start talking about being an engineer.

An engineer cannot participate in irrationality ...

... mechanics is the paradise of the mathematical sciences because by means of it one comes to the fruits of mathematics.

The engineer's power was usually limited to a refusal to endorse a given plan, or to the tender of his resignation.

... the elementary pleasure of solving technical problems.

... the ancient joy of helping the tribe to survive is constantly rekindled in the engineer's heart.

... man cannot help but transcend himself as soon as he begins to design and construct.

... engineering is a basic instinct in man, the expression of which is existentially fulfilling.

... immersed in the notational chaos which is engineering practice.