Charles Babbage Quotes

That science has long been neglected and declining in England, is not an opinion originating with me, but is shared by many, and has been expressed by higher authority than mine.

Charles Babbage

The difference between a tool and a machine is not capable of very precise distinction; nor is it necessary, in a popular explanation of those terms, to limit very strictly their acceptation.

Charles Babbage

The fatigue produced on the muscles of the human frame does not altogether depend on the actual force employed in each effort, but partly on the frequency with which it is exerted.

Charles Babbage

In England, the profession of the law is that which seems to hold out the strongest attraction to talent, from the circumstance, that in it ability, coupled with exertion, even though unaided by patronage, cannot fail of obtaining reward.

Charles Babbage

Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.

Charles Babbage

If we look at the fact, we shall find that the great inventions of the age are not, with us at least, always produced in universities.

Charles Babbage

Mr. Herschel brought with him the calculations of the computers, and we commenced the tedious process of verification. After a time many discrepancies occurred, and at one point these discordances were so numerous that I exclaimed, "I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam," to which Herschel replied, "It is quite possible."

Charles Babbage

Another mode of accumulating power arises from lifting a weight and then allowing it to fall.

Charles Babbage

Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.

Charles Babbage

On two occasions I have been asked,\\\"Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?\\\" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

Charles Babbage

Every moment dies a man, Every moment 1 1/16 is born.

Charles Babbage

It is difficult to estimate the misery inflicted upon thousands of persons, and the absolute pecuniary penalty imposed upon multitudes of intellectual workers by the loss of their time, destroyed by organ-grinders and other similar nuisances.

Charles Babbage

As soon as an Analytical Engine exists, it will necessarily guide the future course of the science. Whenever any result is sought by its aid, the question will then arise by what course of calculation can these results be arrived at by the machine in the shortest time?

Charles Babbage

The whole of arithmetic now appeared within the grasp of mechanism.

Charles Babbage
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