Engineering & Science Notable Quote Archive #17

Notable Tech Quotes - RF CafeThe number of statements uttered verbally and/or in print is uncountable. Some are more noteworthy than others either because of sheer brilliance, good humor, or utter inanity. We all hope our own remembered words, if any, fall into one of the first two categories rather than the third. I do a lot of reading and find many notable quotes to use that fit the theme of RF Cafe; they fall into all three categories. I always try to verify quotes from original sources or at least from printed books like The Experts Speak, of which I own a hard copy. Enjoy.

Notable Tech Quote Archive

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  • "I'll never forget thinking, I'm smarter than half these guys. I may be dumber than half, but I'm definitely in the range." - Josh James, Omniture founder (sold to Adobe for $1.8B), re pre-start-up lecture series attended.

    12/5/2019    3/2/2010

  • "Graphene is an out-of-the-box material, so we shouldn't try to hammer it into existing boxes." - Michael Strano, MIT

    2/24/2010

  • "A world where women (and resocialized men) earn Nobel prizes on flextime has no basis in reality." - Christina Hoff Sommers (Forbes: "Gender Bias Bunk")

    2/17/2010

  • "The fastest way to get an engineer to solve a problem is to declare that the problem is unsolvable." - Anon

    2/10/2010

  • "Sadness is just another word for not enough coffee." - Wally (Dilbert's co-worker)

    2/3/2010, 2/14/2019

  • "Stupidity is like nuclear power; it can be used for good or evil." - Dilbert

    1/27/2010

  • "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'" - Isaac Asimov

    1/20/2010

  • "If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door." - Milton Berle

    1/13/2010, 10/29/2020

  • "Picasso had a saying, 'good artists copy, great artists steal'... and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas." - Steve Jobs (Nokia cites that in lawsuit)

    1/6/2010

  • "It was mentioned on CNN that the new prime number discovered recently is four times bigger than the previous record." - Anon

    12/30/2009

  • "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night." - Santa Claus, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas

    12/23/2009

  • "My father once said that a fool with a plan can beat a genius with no plan." - T. Boone Pickens, in Forbes

    12/16/2009

  • "… and the minute you cross that line, from the people who care to the people who want to go home, that's when you have to micromanage." Joel Spolsky, Fog Creek Software, Inc. Magazine

    12/9/2009

  • "I don't like numbers that can't be written as a fraction. It's an irrational fear." - Anon

    12/2/2009

  • "Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton in the 17th century and it is now definitely established that a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere." - NY Times in 1969 after Apollo 11 landed on the moon (retraction for 1920 article saying Goddard was wrong)!

    11/25/2009

  • "Consulting ... If you're not a part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem." Anon

    11/18/2009

  • "It really bothers me that the definition of success has changed from profits to followers, friends, and feed count." - Jason Fried, 37Signals

    11/11/2009, 12/6/2018

  • "Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems." - Scott Adams

    11/4/2009

  • "If you pick up a phone, you expect to instantly hear a tone. That's the future for computers, too." -  Steve Jones, VP, Phoenix Technologies re boot times

    10/28/2009

  • "I can accept the theory of relativity as little as I can accept the existence of atoms and other such dogmas" - Ernst Mach (the speed of sound guy)

    10/21/2009, 4/18/2019

  • "At Mach3, the aircraft experiences so much heat, and nothing they have at the store works. There's no paint, no rubber, nothing. Metals, plastics, all useless... They had to make every single part of the plane tolerant of the extreme temperatures." - video commentator speaking of the SR-71 Blackbird

    10/14/2009

  • "New ideas pass through three periods: It can't be done. It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing. I knew it was a good idea all along !" Arthur C. Clarke

    10/7/2009

  • "X-rays will prove to be a hoax." -- Lord Kelvin (Sir William Thomson)

    10/10/2019, 9/23/2009

  • "Life is good for only two things, discovering mathematics and teaching mathematics." -- Siméon Poisson

    8/8/2019, 9/23/2009

  • "A plumbing system is very much like your electrical system, except that instead of electricity, it has water, and instead of wires, it has pipes, and instead of radios and waffle irons, it has faucets and toilets. So the truth is that your plumbing systems is nothing at all like your electrical system, which is good, because electricity can kill you." -- Dave Barry

    9/16/2009