That the state of knowledge in any country will exert a directive influence on the general system of instruction adopted in it, is a principle too obvious to require investigation.
CHARLES BABBAGEIt 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.
More Charles Babbage Quotes
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The whole of the developments and operations of analysis are now capable of being executed by machinery … As soon as an Analytical Engine exists, it will necessarily guide the future course of science.
CHARLES BABBAGE -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
Telegraphs are machines for conveying information over extensive lines with great rapidity.
CHARLES BABBAGE -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.
CHARLES BABBAGE -
A young man passes from our public schools to the universities, ignorant almost of the elements of every branch of useful knowledge.
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 -
What is there in a name? It is merely an empty basket, until you put something into it.
CHARLES BABBAGE -
To those who have chosen the profession of medicine, a knowledge of chemistry, and of some branches of natural history, and, indeed, of several other departments of science, affords useful assistance.
CHARLES BABBAGE