Charles Babbage

The whole of the developments and operations of analysis are now capable of being executed by machinery ... As soon as an…

— Charles Babbage

The economy of human time is the next advantage of machinery in manufactures.

— Charles Babbage

The first steps in the path of discovery, and the first approximate measures, are those which add most to the existing knowledge…

— Charles Babbage

The errors which arise from the absence of facts are far more numerous and more durable than those which result from unsound…

— Charles Babbage

The triumph of the industrial arts will advance the cause of civilization more rapidly than its warmest advocates could have hoped, and…

— Charles Babbage

A powerful attraction exists, therefore, to the promotion of a study and of duties of all others engrossing the time most completely,…

— Charles Babbage

Science in England is not a profession: its cultivators are scarcely recognised even as a class. Our language itself contains no single…

— Charles Babbage

Of Cooking. This is an art of various forms, the object of which is to give ordinary observations the appearance and character…

— Charles Babbage

The quantity of meaning compressed into small space by algebraic signs, is another circumstance that facilitates the reasonings we are accustomed to…

— Charles Babbage

Some kinds of nails, such as those used for defending the soles of coarse shoes, called hobnails, require a particular form of…

— Charles Babbage

That the state of knowledge in any country will exert a directive influence on the general system of instruction adopted in it,…

— Charles Babbage

It can happen to but few philosophers, and but at distant intervals, to snatch a science, like Dalton, from the chaos of…

— Charles Babbage

[In response to Alfred Tennyson's poem "Vision of Sin," which included the line "Every moment dies a man, every moment one is…

— Charles Babbage

The difference between a tool and a machine is not capable of very precise distinction; nor is it necessary, in a popular…

— Charles Babbage

Unless there exist peculiar institutions for the support of such inquirers, or unless the Government directly interfere, the contriver of a thaumatrope…

— Charles Babbage

Trimming consists of clipping off little bits here and there from those observations which differ most in excess from the mean, and…

— Charles Babbage

There is nothing in the nature of a miracle that should render it incredible:;: its credibility depends upon the nature of the…

— Charles Babbage

If we define a miracle as an effect of which the cause is unknown to us, then we make our ignorance the…

— Charles Babbage

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

— Charles Babbage

Remember that accumulated knowledge, like accumulated capital, increases at compound interest: but it differs from the accumulation of capital in this; that…

— Charles Babbage

The fatigue produced on the muscles of the human frame does not altogether depend on the actual force employed in each effort,…

— Charles Babbage

He will also find that the high and independent spirit, which usually dwells in the breast of those who are deeply versed…

— Charles Babbage

The half minute which we daily devote to the winding-up of our watches is an exertion of labour almost insensible; yet, by…

— Charles Babbage

Surely, if knowledge is valuable, it can never be good policy in a country far wealthier than Tuscany, to allow a genius…

— Charles Babbage

“I find no flaw in your reasoning about the Analytical Engine; I admire it; but you are aware that it rests entirely…

— Charles Babbage