Quotes by Charles Babbage

“Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all”

“Propose to any Englishman any principle or 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.”

“Every minute dies a man, And one and one-sixteenth is born”

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.

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…

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 to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

Perhaps it would be better for science, that all criticism should be avowed.

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.

The economy of human time is the next advantage of machinery in manufactures.

Another mode of accumulating power arises from lifting a weight and then allowing it to fall.

At each increase of knowledge, as well as on the contrivance of every new tool, human labour becomes abridged.

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.

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.