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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

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Charles Babbage
Age: 79 †
Born: 1791
Born: December 26
Died: 1871
Died: October 18
Astronomer
Computer Scientist
Economist
Engineer
Inventor
Mathematician
Philosopher
University Teacher
London
England
Study
Acquaintance
Powerful
Promotion
Less
Duties
Science
Attraction
Others
Exists
Time
Therefore
Completely
Engrossing
Duty
Benefited

More quotes by Charles Babbage

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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.
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The proportion between the velocity with which men or animals move, and the weights they carry, is a matter of considerable importance, particularly in military affairs.
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For one person who is blessed with the power of invention, many will always be found who have the capacity of applying principles.
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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.
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Mr. Herschel... brought with him the calculations of the computers, and we commenced the tedious process of verification. After a time many discrepancies occurred, and at one point these discordances were so numerous that I exclaimed, I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam, to which Herschel replied, It is quite possible
Charles Babbage
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I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam.
Charles Babbage
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On two occasions I have been asked, '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
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In England, the profession of the law is that which seems to hold out the strongest attraction to talent, from the circumstance, that in it ability, coupled with exertion, even though unaided by patronage, cannot fail of obtaining reward.
Charles Babbage
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Long intervals frequently elapse between the discovery of new principles in science and their practical application... Those intellectual qualifications, which give birth to new principles or to new methods, are of quite a different order from those which are necessary for their practical application.
Charles Babbage
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Surely, if knowledge is valuable, it can never be good policy in a country far wealthier than Tuscany, to allow a genius like Mr. Dalton's, to be employed in the drudgery of elementary instruction.
Charles Babbage
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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.
Charles Babbage
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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
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A young man passes from our public schools to the universities, ignorant almost of the elements of every branch of useful knowledge.
Charles Babbage
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Another mode of accumulating power arises from lifting a weight and then allowing it to fall.
Charles Babbage
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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
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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
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Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.
Charles Babbage
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That science has long been neglected and declining in England, is not an opinion originating with me, but is shared by many, and has been expressed by higher authority than mine.
Charles Babbage
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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
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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