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

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

Age Education Fact Greatness Invention Production University
You will be able to appreciate the influence of such an Engine on the future progress of science. I live in a country which is incapable of estimating it.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Country Estimate Future Live Praise
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

Art Construction Employment Industry Key Machine Perfection Possession Success Tools
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
I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Calculation Execution God Myself
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
In mathematics we have long since drawn the rein, and given over a hopeless race.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Hope Mathematics Race
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
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

Authority Decline Expression Myself Opinion Science
What is there in a name? It is merely an empty basket, until you put something into it.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Basket Empty Name Yourself
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

Acceptance Capability Difference Explanation Limitation Machine Tools
As soon as an Analytical Engine exists, it will neccessarily guide the future course of science.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Existence Guide Necessary Science
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
The public character of every public servant is legitimate subject of discussion, and his fitness or unfitness for office may be fairly canvassed by any person.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Character Legal Person Public
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
Telegraphs are machines for conveying information over extensive lines with great rapidity.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Convey Fast Greatness Information Machine
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
Perhaps it would be better for science, that all criticism should be avowed.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Better Criticism Science
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
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
Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Data Errors Information
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
There are few circumstances which so strongly distinguish the philosopher, as the calmness with which he can reply to criticisms he may think undeservedly severe.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Calm Criticism Deserve Philosophy Strong
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 interested in the subject.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Attachment Discussion Hope Important Interest Subject
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
The accumulation of skill and science which has been directed to diminish the difficulty of producing manufactured goods, has not been beneficial to that country alone in which it is concentrated distant kingdoms have participated in its advantages.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Advantage Country Direction Distance Manufacture Production Science Skills
At each increase of knowledge, as well as on the contrivance of every new tool, human labour becomes abridged.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Human Knowledge Tools Work

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

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

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