Charles Babbage Quotes

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Time, which is the author of authors, be not deprived of his due, which is, further and further to discover truth.

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
In mathematical science, more than in all others, it happens that truths which are at one period the most abstract, and apparently the most remote from all useful application, become in the next age the bases of profound physical inquiries, and in the succeeding one, perhaps, by proper simplification and reduction to tables, furnish their ready and daily aid to the artist and the sailor.

Charles Babbage
Of Cooking. This is an art of various forms, the object of which is to give ordinary observations the appearance and character of those of the highest degree of accuracy. One of its numerous processes is to make multitudes of observations, and out of these to select only those which agree, or very nearly agree. If a hundred observations are made, the cook must be very unhappy if he cannot pick out fifteen or twenty which will do for serving up.

Charles Babbage
The extreme accuracy required in some of our modern inquiries has, in some respects, had an unfortunate influence, by favouring the opinion, that no experiments are valuable, unless the measures are most minute, and the accordance amongst them most perfect.

Charles Babbage
The first step in the use of every instrument is to find the limits within which its employer can measure the same object under the same circumstances. It is only from knowledge of this that he can have confidence in his measures of the same object under different circumstances, and after that, of different objects under different circumstances.

Charles Babbage
Perhaps the most important principle on which the economy of a manufacture depends, is the division of labour amongst the persons who perform the work.

Charles Babbage
The quantity of meaning compressed into small space by algebraic signs, is another circumstance that facilitates the reasonings we are accustomed to carry on by their aid.

Charles Babbage
To examine the varied relations of necessary truth, and to trace through its successive developments, the simple principle to its ultimate result, is the peculiar province of Mathematical Analysis.

Charles Babbage
For one person who is blessed with the power of invention, many will always be found who have the capacity of applying principles.

Charles Babbage
I am inclined to attach some importance to the new system of manufacturing; and venture to throw it out with the hope of its receiving a full discussion among those who are most interestedin the subject.

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

Charles Babbage
The successful construction of all machinery depends on the perfection of the tools employed; and whoever is a master in the arts of tool-making possesses the key to the construction of all machines... The contrivance and construction of tools must therefore ever stand at the head of the industrial arts.

Charles Babbage
Precedents are treated by powerful minds as fetters with which to bind down the weak, as reasons with which to mistify the moderately informed, and as reeds which they themselves fearlessly break through whenever new combinations and difficult emergencies demand their highest efforts.

Charles Babbage
Machines which had never been finished were abandoned in the hands of their makers, because new improvements had superseded their utility.

Charles Babbage
Long intervals frequently elapse between the discovery of new principles in science and their practical application... Those intellectual qualifications, which give birth to new principles or to new methods, are of quite a different order from those which are necessary for their practical application.

Charles Babbage
No person will deny that the highest degree of attainable accuracy is an object to be desired, and it is generally found that the last advances towards precision require a greater devotion of time, labour, and expense, than those which precede them.

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 the aid of a few wheels, its effect is spread over the whole twenty-four hours.

Charles Babbage
He will also find that the high and independent spirit, which usually dwells in the breast of those who are deeply versed in scientific pursuits, is ill adapted for administrative appointments; and that even if successful, he must hear many things he disapproves, and raise no voice against them.

Charles Babbage
In mathematics we have long since drawn the rein, and given over a hopeless race.

Charles Babbage
There is nothing in the nature of a miracle that should render it incredible : its credibility depends upon the nature of the evidence by which it is supported. An event of extreme probability will not necessarily command our belief unless upon a sufficiency of proof; and so an event which we may regard as highly improbable may command our belief if it is sustained by sufficient evidence. So that the credibility or incredibility of an event does not rest upon the nature of the event itself, but depends upon the nature and sufficiency of the proof which sustains it.

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
Those from whose pocket the salary is drawn, and by whose appointment the officer was made, have always a right to discuss the merits of their officers, and their modes of exercising the duties they are paid to perform.

Charles Babbage
What is there in a name? It is merely an empty basket, until you put something into it.

Charles Babbage
Scientific knowledge scarcely exists amongst the higher classes of society. The discussion in the Houses of Lords or of Commons, which arise on the occurrence of any subjects connected with science, sufficiently prove this fact…

Charles Babbage
The triumph of the industrial arts will advance the cause of civilization more rapidly than its warmest advocates could have hoped, and contribute to the permanent prosperity and strength of the country far more than the most splendid victories of successful war.

Charles Babbage
The possessors of wealth can scarcely be indifferent to processes which, nearly or remotely have been the fertile source of their possessions.

Charles Babbage
It will be readily admitted, that a degree conferred by an university, ought to be a pledge to the public that he who holds it possesses a certain quantity of knowledge.

Charles Babbage
Mill, in speaking of Hume's celebrated principle, "that nothing is credible which is contradictory to experience, or at variance with the laws of nature," calls it a very plain and harmless proposition, being, in effect, nothing more than that whatever is contradictory to a complete induction is incredible. Admit the existence of a Deity, and the possibility of a miracle is the natural consequence. No doubt our examination of the evidence which sustains an unusual phenomenon should be most carefully conducted ; but we must not measure the credibility or incredibility of an event by the narrow sphere of our own experience, nor forget that there is a Divine energy which overrides what we familiarly call the laws of nature.

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