Sayings

This page is collection of sayings, maxims and other bits of wisdom. Enjoy!

  • Every nation gets the government it deserves.   — Joseph de Maistre (1753 – 1821)
  • Plans which require something to work correctly on the first attempt almost always fail. As the saying goes: “Never time to do it right; always time to do it over.”
  • No matter where you go, there you are.   — Buckaroo Banzai
  • As an anonymous sage put it after the incident during a Milwaukee Brewers game in 2004: “If sausages are unable to run without fear, none of us is free.”
  • Just because shooting fish in a barrel is easy does not necessarily mean that the fish should remain unshot.
  • No plan survives first contact with the enemy.   — Helmuth von Moltke (1800 – 1891)
  • Should you ever find yourself in a situation where anything you do is of no more practical value than tilting at windmills, you might just as well saddle up, go in, and get a hit.
  • When someone tells you that “the sky is the limit” remember that the sky also touches the ground.
  • When your part of the project takes longer than planned, the manager who complains the most will probably be the one who made the schedule without asking you how long your task would take.
  • It is usually easier to confuse the issue in your native language.
  • When parking your car at work, try to find a spot where you can see all four wheels from your window.
  • Who would have thought that a nuclear reactor could be so complicated?   — Homer Simpson
  • For many companies, it seems that an appropriate corporate motto would be “Get It In Writing.”
  • In passing: may I say that all too often men are betrayed by the word freedom. And as freedom is counted among the most sublime feelings, so the corresponding disillusionment can be also sublime.   — Franz Kafka (1883 – 1924), “A Report to an Academy”
  • Engineers shall perform services only in the areas of their competence.    — Code of Ethics for Engineers
  • Our plans go astray because they have no direction and no aim. No wind works for the man who has no port of destination.   — M. E. de Montaigne  (1533-1592), “Of the Inconsistency of Our Actions”