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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

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

Data Errors Information
Whenever the work is itself light, it becomes necessary, in order to economize time, to increase the velocity.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Light Necessary Order Time Work
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
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
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
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 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
Another mode of accumulating power arises from lifting a weight and then allowing it to fall.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Fall Mode Power Rise
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 economy of human time is the next advantage of machinery in manufactures.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Economy Human Machine Time
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
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
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
Some kinds of nails, such as those used for defending the soles of coarse shoes, called hobnails, require a particular form of the head, which is made by the stroke of a die.
CHARLES BABBAGE

Death Form Head Kind Shoes Tools
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
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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