Ada Lovelace Quotes
English - Mathematician December 10, 1815 - November 27, 1852

That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal, as time will show.
Ada Lovelace

Mathematical science shows what is. It is the language of unseen relations between things. But to use and apply that language, we must be able fully to appreciate, to feel, to seize the unseen, the unconscious.
Ada Lovelace

Imagination is the Discovering Faculty, pre-eminently. It is that which penetrates into the unseen worlds around us, the worlds of Science.
Ada Lovelace

As soon as I have got flying to perfection, I have got a scheme about a steam engine.
Ada Lovelace

I am never so happy as when I am really engaged in good earnest, & it makes me must wonderfully cheerful & merry at other times, which is curious & very satisfactory.
Ada Lovelace

Owing to some peculiarity in my nervous system, I have perception of some things, which no one else has; or at least very few, if any... I can throw rays from every quarter of the universe into one vast focus.
Ada Lovelace

The ideas which led to the Analytical Engine occurred in a manner wholly independent of any that were connected with the Difference Engine. These ideas are indeed, in their own intrinsic nature, independent of the latter engine and might equally have occurred had it never existed nor even been thought of at all.
Ada Lovelace

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

I believe myself to possess a most singular combination of qualities exactly fitted to make me pre-eminently a discoverer of the hidden realities of nature.
Ada Lovelace

I wish to add my mite towards expounding & interpreting the Almighty, & his laws & works, for the most effective use of mankind; and certainly, I should feel it no small glory if I were enabled to be one of his most noted prophets (using this word in my own peculiar sense) in this world.
Ada Lovelace

Those who have learned to walk on the threshold of the unknown worlds, by means of what are commonly termed par excellence the exact sciences, may then, with the fair white wings of imagination, hope to soar further into the unexplored amidst which we live.
Ada Lovelace

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

I shall, in due time, be a Poet.
Ada Lovelace

The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform... But it is likely to exert an indirect and reciprocal influence on science itself.
Ada Lovelace

I am much pleased to find how very well I stand work & how my powers of attention & continued effort increase.
Ada Lovelace

The Analytical Engine does not occupy common ground with mere 'calculating machines.' It holds a position wholly its own, and the considerations it suggests are more interesting in their nature.
Ada Lovelace

I find that nothing but very close and intense application to subjects of a scientific nature now seems at all to keep my imagination from running wild, or to stop up the void which seems to be left in my mind from a want of excitement.
Ada Lovelace

I was rather foolish in saying that I did not like arithmetic and to learn figures when I did - I was not thinking quite what I was about. The sums can be done better, if I tried, than they are.
Ada Lovelace

I have got a scheme to make a thing in the form of a horse with a steam engine in the inside so contrived as to move an immense pair of wings, fixed on the outside of the horse, in such a manner as to carry it up into the air while a person sits on its back.
Ada Lovelace

A new, a vast, and a powerful language is developed for the future use of analysis, in which to wield its truths so that these may become of more speedy and accurate practical application for the purposes of mankind than the means hitherto in our possession have rendered possible.
Ada Lovelace

In the case of the Analytical Engine, we have undoubtedly to lay out a certain capital of analytical labour in one particular line, but this is in order that the engine may bring us in a much larger return in another line.
Ada Lovelace

I have my hopes, & very distinct ones, too, of one day getting cerebral phenomena such that I can put them into mathematical equations: in short, a law or laws for the mutual actions of the molecules of the brain (equivalent to the law of gravitation for the planetary & sideral world).
Ada Lovelace

I think I am more determined than ever in my future plans, and I have quite made up my mind that nothing must be suffered to interfere with them. I intend to make such arrangements in town as will secure me a couple of hours daily (with very few exceptions) for my studies.
Ada Lovelace

Those who incline to very strictly utilitarian views may perhaps feel that the peculiar powers of the Analytical Engine bear upon questions of abstract and speculative science rather than upon those involving everyday and ordinary human interests.
Ada Lovelace


George MacDonald Quotes
Scottish - Novelist December 10, 1824 - September 18, 1905


To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.
George MacDonald

How strange this fear of death is! We are never frightened at a sunset.
George MacDonald

Few delights can equal the presence of one whom we trust utterly.
George MacDonald

To keep a lamp burning we have to keep putting oil in it.
George MacDonald

It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen.
George MacDonald

If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give.
George MacDonald

A beast does not know that he is a beast, and the nearer a man gets to being a beast, the less he knows it.
George MacDonald

Attitudes are more important than facts.
George MacDonald

The best preparation for the future is the present well seen to, and the last duty done.
George MacDonald

We die daily. Happy those who daily come to life as well.
George MacDonald

There are thousands willing to do great things for one willing to do a small thing.
George MacDonald

Forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving, of life.
George MacDonald

The principle part of faith is patience.
George MacDonald

It is our best work that God wants, not the dregs of our exhaustion. I think he must prefer quality to quantity.
George MacDonald

Man finds it hard to get what he wants, because he does not want the best; God finds it hard to give, because He would give the best, and man will not take it.
George MacDonald

Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.
George MacDonald

Love is the opener as well as closer of eyes.
George MacDonald

It matters little where a man may be at this moment; the point is whether he is growing.
George MacDonald

You can't live on amusement. It is the froth on water - an inch deep and then the mud.
George MacDonald

I find that doing of the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about His plans.
George MacDonald

The first thing a kindness deserves is acceptance, the second, transmission.
George MacDonald

Anything large enough for a wish to light upon, is large enough to hang a prayer upon.
George MacDonald

Friends, if we be honest with ourselves, we shall be honest with each other.
George MacDonald

To have what we want is riches; but to be able to do without is power.
George MacDonald

When we are out of sympathy with the young, then I think our work in this world is over.
George MacDonald

The more I work with the body, keeping my assumptions in a temporary state of reservation, the more I appreciate and sympathize with a given disease. The body no longer appears as a sick or irrational demon, but as a process with its own inner logic and wisdom.
George MacDonald

Many a thief is a better man than many a clergyman, and miles nearer to the gate of the kingdom.
George MacDonald

Afflictions are but the shadows of God's wings.
George MacDonald

It is not the cares of today, but the cares of tomorrow, that weigh a man down.
George MacDonald

Where there is no choice, we do well to make no difficulty.
George MacDonald