Words to live by from famous engineers

Whether you’re a professional engineer with many years under your belt or are a student just starting out, the following quotes from some of the most famous engineers are worth keeping in your back pocket.

Alexander Graham Bell

“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.”

Leonardo da Vinci

“Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.”

Nikola Tesla

“Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.”

Alfred Nobel

“If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied.”

Thomas Edison

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

Neil Armstrong

“There can be no great accomplishment without risk.”

And, of course, this great quote from Armstrong: “I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer—born under the second law of thermodynamics, steeped in the steam tables, in love with free-body diagrams, transformed by Laplace, and propelled by compressible flow. As an engineer, I take a substantial amount of pride in the accomplishments of my profession.”