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I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam.

Charles Babbage

The errors which arise from the absence of facts are far more numerous and more durable than those which result from unsound reasoning respecting true data.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Absence Errors Fact Reason Result Rise True
The tastes and pursuits of manhood will bear on them the traces of the earlier impressions of our education. It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that some portion of the neglect of science in England, may be attributed to the system of education we pursue.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Education Impression Man Pursue Pursuit Science Sex Taste
Perhaps it would be better for science, that all criticism should be avowed.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Better Criticism Science
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

Age Education Fact Greatness Invention Production University
The Council of the Royal Society is a collection of men who elect each other to office and then dine together at the expense of this society to praise each other over wine and give each other medals.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Collection Each Other Man Medal Praise Society Wine
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

Correct Hold Man Number Slave Strong Value Weakness
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

Art Civilization Country Hope Prosperity Strength Success Victory War
Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Data Errors Information
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

Employment Frame Frequency Human Production Togetherness
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

Accurate Degree Devotion Greatness Person Time
A powerful attraction exists, therefore, to the promotion of a study and of duties of all others engrossing the time most completely, and which is less benefited than most others by any acquaintance with science.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Attraction Existence Powerful Responsibility Science Study
In turning from the smaller instruments in frequent use to the larger and more important machines, the economy arising from the increase of velocity becomes more striking.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Economy Instrument Science
A tool is usually more simple than a machine; it is generally used with the hand, whilst a machine is frequently moved by animal or steam power.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Animal Frequent Machine Power Simplicity Tools
An object is frequently not seen, from not knowing how to see it, rather than from any defect of the organ of vision.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Frequent Object Organ See Vision
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

Carry Meaning Reason Small Space
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

Blessing Invention Person Power Principle
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

Destroy Difficult Estimate Intellectual Loss Misery Person Time Work
What is there in a name? It is merely an empty basket, until you put something into it.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Basket Empty Name Yourself
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

Important Performance Person Principle Work
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

Appointment Discussion Exercise Money Performance Price
The economy of human time is the next advantage of machinery in manufactures.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Economy Human Machine Time
I have no desire to write my own biography, as long as I have strength and means to do better work.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Better Desire Myself Strength Work Writing
There is, however, another purpose to which academies contribute. When they consist of a limited number of persons, eminent for their knowledge, it becomes an object of ambition to be admitted on their list.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Academics Ambition Knowledge Limitation Person Purpose
The possessors of wealth can scarcely be indifferent to processes which, nearly or remotely have been the fertile source of their possessions.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Possession Source Wealth
The first steps in the path of discovery, and the first approximate measures, are those which add most to the existing knowledge of mankind.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Discover Existence Kind Knowledge Man Measurement Path Step
A young man passes from our public schools to the universities, ignorant almost of the elements of every branch of useful knowledge.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Element Knowledge Man School University Young
Miracles may be, for anything we know to the contrary, phenomena of a higher order of God’s laws, superior to, and, under certain conditions, controlling the inferior order known to us as the ordinary laws of nature.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Control God Law Miracle Nature Order

I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam.

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I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam.

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