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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

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
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
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
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
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 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
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 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
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
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

Connection Discussion Evidence Existence Fact Knowledge Science
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
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
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
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
In mathematics we have long since drawn the rein, and given over a hopeless race.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Hope Mathematics Race

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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