Ada Lovelace Quotes

“I do not believe that my father was (or ever could have been) such a Poet as I shall be an Analyst; (& Metaphysician); for with me the two go together indissolubly.”

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

“If you cant give me poetry, cant you give me poetical science?”

“That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal; as time will show.”

“Owing to some peculiarity in my nervous system, I have a 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.”

“I never am really satisfied that I understand anything; because, understand it well as I may, my comprehension can only be an infinitesimal fraction of all I want to understand about the many connections and relations which occur to me.”

“I don't wish to be without my brains, tho' they doubtless interfere with a blind faith which would be very comfortable.”

“The more I study, the more insatiable do I feel my genius for it to be.”

“One essential object is to choose that arrangement which shall tend to reduce to a minimum the time necessary for completing the calculation.”

“I can throw rays from every quarter of the universe into one vast focus My course is so clear and obvious that it is delightful to think how straight it is.”

“Religion to me is science and science is religion.”

“Understand well as I may, my comprehension can only be an infinitesimal fraction of all I want to understand. ”

“Forget this world and all its troubles and if possible its multitudinous Charlatans - everything in short but the Enchantress of Numbers.”

“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 to fully appreciate, to feel, to seize the unseen, the unconscious.”

“A new, a vast, and a powerful language are 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.”

“In almost every computation a great variety of arrangements for the succession of the processes is possible, and various considerations must influence the selections amongst them for the purposes of a calculating engine.”

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

“I am quite thunder-struck at the power of the writing. It is especially unlike a womans style surely; but neither can I compare it with any mans exactly.”

“It may be desirable to explain, that by the word operation, we mean any process which alters the mutual relation of two or more things, be this relation of what kind it may. This is the most general definition and would include all subjects in the universe.”

“I must tell you what my opinion of my own mind and powers is exactly I believe myself to possess a most singular combination of qualities exactly fitted to make me preeminently a discoverer of the hidden realities of nature.”

“The purpose which that engine has been specially intended and adapted to fulfill, is the computation of nautical and astronomical tables.”

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

“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.”

“The intellectual, the moral, the religious seem to me all naturally bound up and interlinked together in one great and harmonious whole.”

“As soon as I have got flying to perfection, 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.”