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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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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
Many
Shared
Long
Mines
Mine
England
Authority
Originating
Higher
Declining
Opinion
Neglected
Science
Expressed

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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.
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I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam.
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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.
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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.
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A tool is usually more simple than a machine it is generally used with the hand, whilst a machine is frequently moved by animal or steam power.
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It can happen to but few philosophers, and but at distant intervals, to snatch a science, like Dalton, from the chaos of indefinite combination, and binding it in the chains of number, to exalt it to rank amongst the exact. Triumphs like these are necessarily 'few and far between.'
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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.
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As soon as an Analytical Engine exists, it will necessarily guide the future course of the science. Whenever any result is sought by its aid, the question will then arise — by what course of calculation can these results be arrived at by the machine in the shortest time?
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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The economy of human time is the next advantage of machinery in manufactures.
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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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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Forging differs from hoaxing, inasmuch as in the later the deceit is intended to last for a time, and then be discovered, to the ridicule of those who have credited it whereas the forger is one who, wishing to acquire a reputation for science, records observations which he has never made.
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Unless there exist peculiar institutions for the support of such inquirers, or unless the Government directly interfere, the contriver of a thaumatrope may derive profit from his ingenuity, whilst he who unravels the laws of light and vision, on which multitudes of phenomena depend, shall descend unrewarded to the tomb.
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The first steps in the path of discovery, and the first approximate measures, are those which add most to the existing knowledge of mankind.
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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.
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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