"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
-- Charles Babbage
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
Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.
-- Charles Babbage
Every minute dies a man, And one and one-sixteenth is born.
-- Charles Babbage
I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam.
-- Charles Babbage
Propose to an Englishman any principle, or any instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the English mind is directed to find a difficulty, a defect, or an impossibility in it. If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will pronounce it impossible: if you peel a potato with it before his eyes, he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple.
-- Charles Babbage
The whole of arithmetic now appeared within the grasp of mechanism.
-- Charles Babbage
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