Great Throughts Treasury

"At the same time that the information which is required to use and maintain modern products is increasing dramatically, the human ability to comprehend that information is decreasing catastrophically."

"It costs a lot to build bad products."

"If stock market experts were so expert, they would be buying stock, not selling advice"

"Two-thirds of the Earth's surface is covered with water. The other third is covered with auditors from headquarters."

"The weaker the data available upon which to base one's conclusion, the greater the precision which should be quoted in order to give the data authenticity."

"Software is like entropy. It is difficult to grasp, weighs nothing, and obeys the second law of thermodynamics; i.e. it always increases."

"Simply stated, it is sagacious to eschew obfuscation."

"Regulations grow at the same rate as weeds."

"By the time the people asking the questions are ready for the answers, the people doing the work have lost track of the questions."

"There are many highly successful businesses in the United States. There are also many highly paid executives. The policy is not to intermingle the two."

"Any task can be completed in only one-third more time than is currently estimated."

"Fools rush in where incumbents fear to tread."

"One-tenth of the participants produce over one-third of the output. Increasing the number of participants merely reduces the average output."

"The last 10 percent of performance generates one-third of the cost and two-thirds of the problems."

"All too many consultants, when asked, 'What is 2 and 2?' respond, 'What do you have in mind?"

"A revised schedule is to business what a new season is to an athlete or a new canvas to an artist."

"Most projects start out slowly - and then sort of taper off."

"One should expect that the expected can be prevented, but the unexpected should have been expected."

"Simple systems are not feasible because they require infinite testing."

"Hardware works best when it matters the least."

"It's easy to get a loan unless you need it."

"It is very expensive to achieve high unreliability. It is not uncommon to increase the cost of an item by a factor of ten for each factor of ten degradation accomplished."

"The average regulation has a life span one-fifth as long as a chimpanzee's and one-tenth as long as a human's - but four times as long as the official's who created it."

"The most unsuccessful four years in the education of a cost-estimator is fifth grade arithmetic."

"People working in the private sector should try to save money. There remains the possibility that it may someday be valuable again."

"One cannot legislate problems out of existence. It has been tried."

"Decreased business base increases overhead. So does increased business base."

"The process of competitively selecting contractors to perform work is based on a system of rewards and penalties, all distributed randomly."

"Rank does not intimidate hardware. Neither does the lack of rank."

"The best way to make a silk purse from a sow's ear is to begin with a silk sow. The same is true of money."

"Bulls do not win bull fights. People do."

"Although most products will soon be too costly to purchase, there will be a thriving market in the sale of books on how to fix them."

"If you can afford to advertise, you don't need to."

"One of the most feared expressions in modern times is ''The computer is down.''"

" If today were half as good as tomorrow is supposed to be, it would probably be twice as good as yesterday was."

"Acronyms and abbreviations should be used to the maximum extent possible to make trivial ideas profound ... Q.E.D."

"By the time of the United States Tricentennial, there will be more government workers than there are workers."

"The more one produces, the less one gets."

"Motivation will almost always beat mere talent."

"The optimum committee has no members."

"In the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just one aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and Navy 3-1/2 days each per week except for leap year, when it will be made available to the Marines for the extra day."

"In my view the organization has been far more successful than I dreamed it would be. But my view is also that it's still an unproved experiment."

"A billion saved is a billion earned."

"A hungry dog hunts best. A hungrier dog hunts even better."

"A recent government publication on the marketing of cabbage contains, according to one report, 26,941 words. It is noteworthy in this regard that the Gettysburg Address contains a mere 279 words while the Lord's Prayer comprises but 67."

"After the year 2015, there will be no airplane crashes. There will be no takeoffs either, because electronics will occupy 100 percent of every airplane's weight."

"Aircraft flight in the 21st century will always be in a westerly direction, preferably supersonic, crossing time zones to provide the additional hours needed to fix the broken electronics."

"Executives who do not produce successful results hold on to their jobs only about five years. Those who produce effective results hang on about half a decade."

"For every scientific (or engineering) action, there is an equal and opposite social reaction."

"Global leadership is not a birthright. Despite what many Americans believe, our nation does not possess an innate knack for greatness. Greatness must be worked for and won by each new generation. Right now that is not happening. But we still have time. If we place the emphasis we should on education, research and innovation we can lead the world in the decades to come. But the only way to ensure we remain great tomorrow is to increase our investment in science and engineering today."