The quote database

The engine can arrange and combine its numerical quantities exactly as if they were letters or any other general symbols; and in fact it might bring out its results in algebraical notation, were provisions made accordingly.

We may say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves.

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

Hence the necessity that he should have been well trained in habits, who is to study, with any tolerable chance of profit, the principles of nobleness and justice and moral philosophy generally.

From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books.

There is no education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women

You will constantly be surprised to find how little you really know about your work, and how much more somebody else knows about it than you do.

No one gets much out of life who does not make his education a real, vital part of himself.

Men do not make laws. They do but discover them.

Although our intellect always feels itself urged towards clearness and certainty, still our mind often feels itself attracted by uncertainty.

By the aid of the Mechanical Notation, the Analytical Engine became a reality: for it became susceptible of demonstration.

Thus the Analytical Engine will possess a library of its own. Every set of cards once made will at any future time reproduce the calculations for which it was first arranged.

Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist who, for the first time, has wandered by himself in a Brazilian forest.

Sitting down on a block of granite, it was delightful to watch the various insects and birds as they flew past.

The brain of man is the social organ, the organ of communication. Through it flows the current of thought, whereby we are enabled to work together.

As the racial distinction of humanity lies in its social relation, so we find the distinctive gains and losses of humanity to lie also in its social relation. We are more affected by our relation to each other than by our physical environment.

To specialize any form of labor is a step up: to organize it is another step.

Language is our largest common medium, and leads on into literature, which is but preserved speech.

It’s also about knowing what you know and what you don’t know. It’s about being open to people and ideas.

To not only take risks, but to be open to life. To accept new views and to be open to new opinions.

A boy of spirit may acquire a previous and practical experience of the world; and his playfellows may be the future friends of his heart or his interest.

The study of conditions will prove an education in itself and a stimulus to invention.

Yet it is only intelligence and sympathy that can bring us closer to the source of human suffering, and teach us the ultimate way out of it.

The more experience we gain, the more progress we can make.

Every thought, every word is impressed upon it and carried out in amazing detail.