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.

Another mode of accumulating power arises from lifting a weight and then allowing it to fall.

For one person who is blessed with the power of invention, many will always be found who have the capacity of applying principles.

A young man passes from our public schools to the universities, ignorant almost of the elements of every branch of useful knowledge.

The errors which arise from the absence of facts are far more numerous and more durable than those which result from unsound reasoning respecting true data.

The influence of electricity in producing decompositions, although of inestimable value as an instrument of discovery in chemical inquiries, can hardly be said to have been applied to the practical purposes of life, until the same powerful genius [Davy] which detected the principle, applied it, by a singular felicity of reasoning, to arrest the corrosion of the copper-sheathing of vessels. ... this was regarded as by Laplace as the greatest of Sir Humphry's discoveries.

The half minute which we daily devote to the winding-up of our watches is an exertion of labour almost insensible; yet, by the aid of a few wheels, its effect is spread over the whole twenty-four hours.