Funny Engineering Quotes

Engineers are a special breed and love their funny quotes. They’re smart, talented, and creative, some even nerdy and serious. But like anyone else – they also have a sense of humor!

Funny engineering quotes

Check out these funny engineering quotes that perfectly capture the personality and life of engineers. Whether you’re an engineer yourself, or just appreciate their quirky minds, you’ll love these quotes and sayings!

Funny engineering quotes for civil engineering

1. “Any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited.”
—Colin C. Williams

2. “A horse is a sphere if it makes the numbers easier.”
—Unknown

3. “Essentially, all models are wrong, but some models are useful.”
—George E. P. Box

4. “Do unto others 20% better than you would expect them to do unto you, to correct for subjective error.”
—Linus Pauling

5. “Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems.”
—Scott Adams

6. “Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell ’em, “Certainly, I can!” Then get busy and find out how to do it.”
—Theodore Roosevelt

7. “An optimist will tell you the glass is half-full; the pessimist, half-empty; and the engineer will tell you the glass is twice the size it needs to be.”
—Oscar Wilde

8. “Engineers: they turn coffee into buildings.”
—Unknown

9. “You can use an eraser on the drafting table or a sledge hammer on the construction site.”
—Frank Lloyd Wright

10. “Given enough time, an engineer will optimize to infinity.”
—Unknown

Funny engineering quotes for mechanical engineering

1. “You want a valve that doesn’t leak and you try everything possible to develop one. But the real world provides you with a leaky valve. You have to determine how much leakiness you can tolerate.”
—Arthur Rudolph

2. “A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”
—Douglas Adams

3. “If it ain t broke fix it till it is”
—Unknown

4. “Normal people… 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.”
—Scott Adams

5. “Majors in mechanical engineering, talks down to civil engineering friends about how easy their major is.”
—Unknown

6. “Understands heat transfers, still burns popcorn.”
—Unknown

7. “The fewer moving parts, the better. Exactly. No truer words were ever spoken in the context of engineering.”
—Christian Cantrell

8. “Engineering is the art and science of nuts and bolts.”
—Haresh Sippy

9. “The trick to having good ideas is not to sit around in glorious isolation and try to think big thoughts. The trick is to get more parts on the table.”
—Steven Johnson

10. “The 4 Laws of Thermodynamics of course: Zeroth: There is a game. First: You can’t win. Second: You can’t break even. Third: You can’t quit the game.”
—Allen Ginsberg

Funny engineering quotes for electrical engineering

1. “Chemical engineers build the rocket fuel. Electrical engineers build the guidance system. Nuclear engineers build the payload. Environmental engineers clean it up.”
—Unknown

2. “Digital design is stupid. Any idiot can count to one.”
—Bob Widlar

3. “Electrical Engineers do it with more frequency and less resistance.”
—Unknown

4. “Never become part of the circuit.”
—Unknown

5. “An engineer is someone who is good with figures, but doesn’t have the personality of an accountant.”
—Unknown

6. “My life is full of positives and negatives. I’m an electrical engineer.”
—Unknown

7. “Byrne’s Law: In any electrical circuit, appliances and wiring will burn out to protect fuses.”
—Robert Byrne

8. “V won’t kill you ‘i’ will”
—Unknown

9. “No resistance can drop your potential.”
—Unknown

10. “Faith is like electricity you can’t see but you can see the light.”
—Unknown

11. “May peace be amplified and world be rectified.”
—Unknown

Funny software engineering quotes

1. “Software and cathedrals are much the same – first we build them, then we pray.”
—Sam Redwine

2. “Oh, I just forgot the semicolon…”
—Every Software Engineer

3. “C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg.”
—Bjarne Stroustrup

4. “If brute force doesn’t work, you aren’t using enough.”
—Sherrilyn Kenyon

5. “The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.”
—Unknown

6. “Programmer: A machine that turns coffee into code.”
—Unknown

7. “When I wrote this code, only God and I understood what I did. Now only God knows.”
—Unknown

8. “Before software can be reusable it first has to be usable.”
—Ralph Johnson

9. “One man’s crappy software is another man’s full-time job.”
—Jessica Gaston

10. “Software undergoes beta testing shortly before it’s released. Beta is Latin for ‘still doesn’t work’.”
—Unknown

11. “Algorithm: Word used by programmers when they don’t want to explain what they did.”
—Unknown

12. “Don’t worry if it doesn’t work right. If everything did, you’d be out of a job.”
—Mosher’s Law of Software Engineering

13. “The attention span of a computer is only as long as its electrical cord.”
—Dan Rather

Also Read: Top Inspirational Engineering Quotes

Best funny sayings and quotes about engineering life

1. “Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in the mud; after a while, you realize you are muddy and the pig is enjoying it.”
—Unknown

2. “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.”
—Arthur M. Wellington

3. “I didn’t choose the engineering life, the engineering life chose me.”
—Unknown

4. “Science is about knowing; engineering is about doing.”
—Henry Petroski

5. “The problem in this business isn’t to keep people from stealing your ideas; it’s making them steal your ideas!”
—Howard Aiken

6. “Engineering is the continuation of politics by other means.”
—Larrie D. Ferreiro

7. “Your test equipment is lying to you and it is your job to figure out how.”
—Charles Rush

8. “What’s nice about having an engineering degree is everybody thinks you are smart.”
—Ato Essandoh

9. “The ‘H’ in ENGINEER stands for happiness.”
—Unknown

10. “Unfortunately, humans have a long history of trying to fix their engineering mistakes with more engineering mistakes!”
—Steven Magee

11. “Engineering is the closest thing to magic that exists in the world.”
—Elon Musk

12. “I had no talent for science. What was infinitely worse: all my fraternity brothers were engineers.”
—Kurt Vonnegut

Best funny engineering short one-liners

1. “In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.”
—Benjamin Brewster

2. “A scientist can discover a new star but he cannot make one. He would have to ask an engineer to do it for him.”
—Gordon Lindsay Glegg

3. “Inventions are smarter than their inventors.”
—Larrie D. Ferreiro

4. “An engineer was asked “what’s 1 + 1?” “I think it’s 2,” s/he said, “but I’ll say 3 just to be safe.”
—Unknown

5. “Gravity doesn’t take a day off.”
—Unknown

6. “To get the answer, you must know the answer.”
—Unknown

7. “I am an engineer to save time let’s assume that I’m always right.”
—Unknown

8. “Engineer solving problems you didn’t know you had in ways you can’t understand.”
—Unknown

9. “Don’t judge something by the imperfections.”
—Unknown

10. “Daddy, will I ever have free time? No son we are engineers.”
—Unknown

Also Read: 110 Best Quotes to Celebrate Engineer’s Day

Funny sayings and quotes about engineering students

1. “After joining engineering. I really appreciate my brain which is divided into two parts right-left. 1. In right, nothing is left. 2. In left, nothing is right.”
—Unknown

2. “Oh MATLAB; can’t live with it, can’t graduate without it…”
—Every Engineering Student

3. “The best engineers have the worst handwriting.”
—Unknown

4. “No matter how much sleep I get, I`m always tired when I get up for college!”
—Every Engineering Student

5. “I’m not lazy, I’m on energy saving mode.”
—Electrical Engineering Students

6. “Exams!!!!The most creative phase of life.”
—Unknown

7. “Happiness for engineering students? Lecture canceled.”
—Unknown

8. “We learn from failure, not from success.”
—Engineering Students

9. “An opinion without 3.14 is just an onion.”
—Unknown

10. “Engineering is being confident in your made-up answers.”
—Unknown

Bottom-line

Some of the quotes have been amusing. Which one do you think was the funniest? If you believe we’ve overlooked a more hilarious engineering quote, please let us know in the comment section.