Charles Babbage

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.

The great object of the Analytical Engine is to effect calculations of any extent and complexity, and to print results, or to punch them on cards, or to impress them on plates of metal.

The whole of the developments and operations of analysis are now capable of being executed by machinery.

Errors, indeed, are not to be found in the operations of the machine, but they are possible in the data supplied to it.

The more we examine the works of nature, the more we perceive the wonderful skill and contrivance by which they are adapted to the various purposes they are intended to fulfil.

The Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.

The principle of the Analytical Engine is the substitution of machinery for intellect.

The successful construction of the Difference Engine, and the subsequent invention of the Analytical Engine, have opened up a new field of inquiry.

The great principle of the division of labour, which has been so successfully applied to the manufacture of pins, may be extended with equal advantage to the production of calculations.

The difference engine is a machine for calculating tables by the method of differences.

The power of the Analytical Engine is not limited to numerical calculations; it can be applied to any operations which can be expressed by general symbols.

The object of the present work is to point out the advantages which arise from the application of machinery to various processes of manufacture.

The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform.

The more I examine the works of the Creator, the more I am impressed with the conviction that they are the result of design.

The great defect of all machines is that they are not capable of performing any operations which have not been previously arranged for them.

The Analytical Engine is an embodying of the science of operations, constructed with a view to perform all the calculations which it is possible to perform by the human intellect.

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.

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.

The science of operations, as derived from mathematics more especially, is a science of itself, and has its own abstract truth and value.

I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam.