Cheops
Khufu or Cheops was an ancient Egyptian monarch who was the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty, in the first half of the Old Kingdom period (26th century BC). Khufu succeeded his father Sneferu as king. He is generally accepted as having com ...
' Law is an
adage
An adage (; Latin: adagium) is a memorable and usually philosophical aphorism that communicates an important truth derived from experience, custom, or both, and that many people consider true and credible because of its longeval tradition, i.e. ...
or
epigram
An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word is derived from the Greek "inscription" from "to write on, to inscribe", and the literary device has been employed for over two mille ...
that is typically stated as, ''Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.''
Written by
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein (; July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accu ...
; attributed to his fictitious character
Lazarus Long
Lazarus Long is a fictional character featured in a number of science fiction novels by Robert A. Heinlein. Born in 1912 in the third generation of a selective breeding experiment run by the Ira Howard Foundation, Lazarus (birth name Woodrow Wi ...
in ''
Time Enough for Love
''Time Enough for Love'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, first published in 1973. The work was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1973 and both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1974.
Plot
The book cov ...
'' (1973)
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein (; July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accu ...
, ''Time Enough for Love
''Time Enough for Love'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, first published in 1973. The work was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1973 and both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1974.
Plot
The book cov ...
'' (Penguin, 1988 reprint), .
Excerpts available
at Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
. and later in
The Notebooks Of Lazarus Long
''The Notebooks of Lazarus Long'' is a 1978 collection of aphorisms by Robert A. Heinlein, Robert Heinlein's main character, "Lazarus Long", excerpted from his 1973 novel ''Time Enough for Love''. The aphorisms were originally published as two "i ...
.
See also
*
Hofstadter's law
Hofstadter's law is a self-referential adage, coined by Douglas Hofstadter in his book '' Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid'' (1979) to describe the widely experienced difficulty of accurately estimating the time it will take to complet ...
: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
References
{{Reflist
1973 neologisms
Adages
Robert A. Heinlein
Cultural depictions of Khufu