engineering mindset Quotes

When I get an idea I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind. It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in my thought or test it in my shop. I even note if it is out of balance.

Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems.

I'm more of an engineer with a law degree than I am a lawyer with an engineering degree in terms of how I think.

With engineering, I view this year's failure as next year's opportunity to try it again. Failures are not something to be avoided. You want to have them happen as quickly as you can so you can make progress rapidly.

It has been said that an engineer is a man who can do for ten shillings what any fool can do for a pound; if that be so, we were certainly engineers.

I went to school at MIT with a whole bunch of engineers. And then I started work one day and asked myself, 'Why do all of these MIT Ph.D.s work for Harvard M.B.A.s?' Why should it be like that? I was one of those engineers who thought, 'Why are these people making those dumb decisions?' So it's fun to be the person making them.

This is one of my favorites. People think of creativity as this sort of unbridled thing, but engineers thrive on constraints. They love to think their way out of that little box: 'We know you said it was impossible, but we're going to do this, this, and that to get us there.'

For me, cooking is practical. That's the core of an engineer. Engineers are very practical designers and creative people. Every single thing I create has to have a purpose.

I've always been an engineer devoted to the potential of advanced technologies. Like most engineers, I have a keen sense of curiosity and a deep desire to learn. Garmin was my first entrepreneurial endeavour, and it has been an incredible journey.

I loved to take things apart and put them back together. I loved the way things work.

Unfortunately, I'm an engineer. I'm always thinking about, what's the task and how do I get it done? And some of my tasks are pretty broad, and pretty fuzzy, and pretty funky, but that's the way I think.

I've always disliked words like inspiration. Writing is probably like a scientist thinking about some scientific problem, or an engineer about an engineering problem.

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. There are no prima donnas in engineering.

I loved problems on paper, and I was good at math, but I was a mechanical engineer, and I never understood - or cared to - how a car worked.

I'm an engineer by trade, and what engineers do is they go and build, and they don't think a lot about storytelling.

The people who built Silicon Valley were engineers. They learned business, they learned a lot of different things, but they had a real belief that humans, if they worked hard with other creative, smart people, could solve most of humankind's problems. I believe that very much.

To the engineer, all matter in the universe can be placed into one of two categories: (1) things that need to be fixed, and (2) things that will need to be fixed after you've had a few minutes to play with them. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems. Normal people don't understand this concept; they 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.

I'm the kid that tried to take Latin in school because I felt if I could understand the root of everything, then I could understand why it worked. That was what took me into engineering. And the reason I stayed is, engineering teaches you to solve problems. It teaches you to think.

We are victims of the post-Enlightenment view that the world functions like a sophisticated machine, to be understood like a textbook engineering problem and run by wonks. In other words, like a home appliance, not like the human body.

When I was 5 or 6 years old, I never wanted toys; I wanted electrical parts so I could build things. And I was better at taking things apart and putting them back together, but I always had extra pieces left over, so I think it was an early warning that I was a better designer than an engineer.

As an engineer, you learn there is a solution to every problem. It may take you a while, but eventually you're going to find it.

I am also involved with all the acquisitions and overall strategy. Now it's true, I don't run operations. But I've never really run operations. I've never had the endurance to run sales. The whole idea of selling to the customer just isn't my personality. I'm an engineer, tell me why something isn't working or is and I am curious.

My perspective comes in part from being a New York black lady, in part from being an engineer. I know I'm smart and have opinions worth being heard.

When Da Vinci wanted an effect, he willed, he planned the means to make it happen: that was the purpose of his machines. But the machines of Newton ... are means not for doing but for observing. He saw an effect, and he looked for its cause.

If Mark Zuckerberg doesn't understand something, it's not defeat. It's not even something he has to accept. It's merely a challenge he needs to engineer his way out of, and that includes human emotions and relationships.