“Rocket engineering is not like ditch digging. With ditch digging you can get 100 people and dig a ditch, and you will dig it a hundred times as faster if you get 100 people versus one. With rockets, you have to solve the problem of a particular level of difficulty; one person who can solve the problem is worth an infinite number of people who can’t.”

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update May 22, 2025. History

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Elon Musk91

South African-born American entrepreneur 1971

Shawna Vogel science writer

Naked Earth: the New Geophysics (1995)

“You have got through the difficult business, now you dig, dig, dig, until you are safe.”

Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton (1853–1947) British Army general

“Ritie, don't worry 'cause you ain't pretty. Plenty pretty women I seen digging ditches or worse. You smart. I swear to God, I rather you have a good mind than a cute behind.”

Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Source: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“Should I get you a shovel, so you can dig that hole deeper?”

Rick Riordan book The Hammer of Thor

Source: The Hammer of Thor

“Success makes people - people not related to you or to your field - like to take a dig at you.”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Anshul Chaturvedi

“Sometimes I am afraid for people like you who have to know things. Your kind will dig and hunt and worry at it until one day you will find what is hidden, waiting for you.”

Isobelle Carmody book Obernewtyn

Source: Obernewtyn

“What has to die will die, and what has to remain will remain. Supposing you dig a well and the water dries up. Just because the well went dry, you cannot say that there is no water there. You cannot say that the spring is dead, for if you dig down one more foot, water will again spring up. If people will only dig a little deeper, they will find the water there. Of course, they can say, “There is no water in the well any more,” and go away. But those who have real thirst will dig a little deeper, and they will find water there. What is will always be. That which dies is dead and gone, but that which is will always be.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

“There are also those who, like the author, ensconce themselves on a thunderous crag of omniscience, and with protestations of humility which are either unconvincing or totally absent, assume the obligation of appraisal, commendation, derogation or denunciation of their contemporaries. Still, by and large it is an easier job than digging a ditch.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 6 (p. 59)

“You cannot dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper.”

Edward de Bono (1933) Maltese physician

Source: Lateral Thinking : Creativity Step by Step (1970), p. 8.

“If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for thirty days because they get infections and they don't have upper body strength. I mean, some do, but they're relatively rare. On the other hand, men are basically little piglets, you drop them in the ditch, they roll around in it, doesn't matter, you know. These things are very real. On the other hand, if combat means being on an Aegis-class cruiser managing the computer controls for twelve ships and their rockets, a female may be again dramatically better than a male who gets very, very frustrated sitting in a chair all the time because males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes.”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

Address, "Renewing American Civilization," Reinhardt College (7 January 1995)
1990s

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