gently expressed a doubt whether the plan was possible, to which I replied that, not being able to prove its impossibility, I should follow out a sli… - Allan G Bromley

Having myself worked with a variety of tools, and having studied the art of constructing each of them, I at length laid it down as a principle — that, except in rare cases, I would never do anything myself if I could afford to hire another person who could do it for me.

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 to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

No motion impressed by natural causes, or by human agency, is ever obliterated.