This quote is mentioned in the Chaos report 1994 which is an excellent document for Project Management enthusiasts by Standish Group ® outlining the reasons for Software and Information Technology projects failure.
It is true that it took mankind 3000 years to master Bridge Building until we reached the stage where Bridge Failures are very few and far between. Modern Bridges spans are longer, the materials used are less cumbersome and they do not require as many people to build as before.
The same will eventually apply on Information Technology , hopefully it will take us less number of years to reach the maturity level required to have our projects achieving the intended business benefit on Time, on Schedule with the quality level expected.

Project Management success has many ingredients, some of them are covered in the Chaos report, however unless you have the following ingredients, success will be a far reaching goal: