Charles Babbage > Quotes

“On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.”
― Charles Babbage

“Whenever a man can get hold of numbers, they are invaluable: if correct, they assist in informing his own mind, but they are still more useful in deluding the minds of others. Numbers are the masters of the weak, but the slaves of the strong.”
― Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher

“I find no flaw in your reasoning about the Analytical Engine; I admire it; but you are aware that it rests entirely on the hypothesis that I care for the 'whole human race.”
― 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, Reflections on the Decline of Science in England

“Forget this world and all its troubles and if possible its multitudinous Charlatans--everything in short but the Enchantress of Numbers.”
― Charles Babbage

“Propose to an Englishman any principle, or any instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the English mind is directed to find a difficulty, a defect, or an impossibility in it. If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will pronounce it impossible: if you peel a potato with it before his eyes, he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple.”
― Charles Babbage

“occupation of the mind is such a source of pleasure that it can relieve even the pain of a headache;”
― Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher [Annotated]

“One of the most singular characteristics of the art of deciphering is the strong conviction possessed by every person, even moderately acquainted with it, that he is able to construct a cipher which nobody else can decipher. I have also observed that the cleverer the person, the more intimate is his conviction.”
― Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher

“Having myself worked with a variety of tools, and having studied the art of constructing each of them, I at length laid it down as a principle—that, except in rare cases, I would never do anything myself if I could afford to hire another person who could do it for me.”
― Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher [Annotated]

“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, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher

“The more man inquires into the laws which regulate the material universe, the more he is convinced that all its varied forms arise from the action of a few simple principles. These principles themselves converge, with accelerating force, towards some still more comprehensive law to which all matter seems to be submitted. Simple as that law may possibly be, it must be remembered that it is only one amongst an infinite number of simple laws: that each of these laws has consequences at least as extensive as the existing one, and therefore that the Creator who selected the present law must have foreseen the consequences of all other laws.”
― Charles Babbage

“Some men write their lives to save themselves from ennui, careless of the amount they inflict on their readers.”
― Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher

“If I played any of the ordinary openings, such as are found in the books, I was sure to be beaten. The only way in which I had a chance of winning, was by making early in the game a move so bad that it had not been mentioned in any treatise.”
― Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher

“gently expressed a doubt whether the plan was possible, to which I replied that, not being able to prove its impossibility, I should follow out a slight glimmering of light which I thought I perceived.”
― Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher [Annotated]

“No motion impressed by natural causes, or by human agency, is ever obliterated.”
― Charles Babbage

“...Propose to a man any principle, or an instrument, however admirable, and you will observe the whole effort is directed to find a difficulty, a defect, or an impossibility in it. If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will pronounce it impossible: if you peel a potato with it before his eyes, he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple.”
― Charles Babbage

“Em duas ocasiões me perguntaram: 'Diga-nos, Sr. Babbage, se introduzirmos dados errados na máquina, ainda sairão respostas corretas?' Eu não consigo compreender o tipo de confusão de ideias que motivou tal questão.”
― Charles Babbage

“the greatest obstacles to the acquisition of knowledge—inasmuch as he possesses the consciousness that he does not know—and he has the moral courage to avow it.”
― Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher [Annotated]

“Our attraction to that quality which we have come to call 'beauty', and which we associate with the detection of innate unity and harmony in the face of superficial diversity, has led us to expect that the unity of the Universe should be expressed in certain particular ways. If we are physicists we might often hear talk of the 'beauty' or 'elegance' of particular ideas or theories to such an extent that, like Dirac, *we make aesthetic quality a guide or even a prerequisite for the formulation of correct mathematical theories of nature.”
― Charles Babbage

“Man wrongs, and Time avenges. Byron—The Prophecy of Dante.”
― Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher [Annotated]