Augusta Ada Lovelace Quotes

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

Forget this world and all its troubles and if possible
its multitudinous Charlatans
everything in short but
the Enchantress of Numbers. ~ Ada Lovelace

The confusion, the difficulties, the contradictions which, in consequence of a want of accurate distinctions in this particular, have up to even a recent period encumbered mathematics in all those branches involving the consideration of negative and impossible quantities, will at once occur to the reader who is at all versed in this science, and would alone suffice to justify dwelling somewhat on the point, in connexion with any subject so peculiarly fitted to give forcible illustration of it as the Analytical Engine. ~ Ada Lovelace

If you can't give me poetry, can't you give me poetical science? ~ Ada Lovelace

But the science of operations, as derived from mathematics more especially, is a science of itself, and has its own abstract truth and value; just as logic has its own peculiar truth and value, independently of the subjects to which we may apply its reasonings and processes. ~ Ada Lovelace

The further we analyse the manner in which such an engine performs its processes and attains its results, the more we perceive how distinctly it places in a true and just light the mutual relations and connexion of the various steps of mathematical analysis; how clearly it separates those things which are in reality distinct and independent, and unites those which are mutually dependent. ~ Ada Lovelace

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

In enabling mechanism to combine together general symbols in successions of unlimited variety and extent, a uniting link is established between the operations of matter and the abstract mental processes of the most abstract branch of mathematical science. ~ Ada Lovelace

I don't wish to be without my brains, tho' they doubtless interfere with a blind faith which would be very comfortable ~ Ada Lovelace

What is imagination?...
It is a God-like, a noble faculty. It renders earth tolerable, it teaches us to live, in the tone of the eternal. ~ Ada Lovelace

The Analytical Engine, on the contrary, can either add, subtract, multiply or divide with equal facility; and performs each of these four operations in a direct manner, without the aid of any of the other three. ~ Ada Lovelace

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

In abstract mathematics, of course operations alter those particular relations which are involved in the considerations of number and space, and the results of operations are those peculiar results which correspond to the nature of the subjects of operation. ~ 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

Secondly, figures, the symbols of numerical magnitude, are frequently also the symbols of operations, as when they are the indices of powers. Wherever terms have a shifting meaning, independent sets of considerations are liable to become complicated together, and reasoning and results are frequently falsified. ~ Ada Lovelace

Your mum wrote that girls can do whatever," Ada continued. "Education. Profession."
Mary, now fully engaged, put down her book.
"My dear Ada, my mother wrote about how things ought to be, not how they are."
Ada continued looking displeased, which made Mary go on. "Of course, how are things to be the way they ought, unless we make them so? ~ Jordan Stratford

This one fact implies everything; and it is scarcely necessary to point out, for instance, that while the Difference Engine can merely tabulate, and is incapable of developing, the Analytical Engine can either tabulate or develope. ~ Ada Lovelace

We might even invent laws for series or formula in an arbitrary manner, and set the engine to work upon them, and thus deduce numerical results which we might not otherwise have thought of obtaining; but this would hardly perhaps in any instance be productive of any great practical utility, or calculated to rank higher than as a philosophical amusement. ~ 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

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

Indeed we may consider the engine as the material and mechanical representative of analysis, and that our actual working powers in this department of human study will be enabled more effectually than heretofore to keep pace with our theoretical knowledge of its principles and laws, through the complete control which the engine gives us over the executive manipulation of algebraical and numerical symbols. ~ 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 in a charming state of confusion. ~ Ada Lovelace

We cannot forbear suggesting one practical result which it appears to us must be greatly facilitated by the independent manner in which the engine orders and combines its operations: we allude to the attainment of those combinations into which imaginary quantities enter. ~ Ada Lovelace

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. ~ Ada Lovelace

With whomsoever or wheresoever may rest the present causes of difficulty that apparently exist towards either the completion of the old engine, or the commencement of the new one, we trust they will not ultimately result in this generation's being acquainted with these inventions through the medium of pen, ink and paper merely; and still more do we hope, that for the honour of our country's reputation in the future pages of history, these causes will not lead to the completion of the undertaking by some other nation or government. ~ Ada Lovelace

It is however pretty evident, on general principles, that in devising for mathematical truths a new form in which to record and throw themselves out for actual use, views are likely to be induced, which should again react on the more theoretical phase of the subject. ~ Ada Lovelace

when I die, do not waste a minute mouring me. I may go, but I will leave behind all my thousand & one lives - a bookmad girl never dies. ~ Amanda Lovelace

What I didn't like was how people talked to me
now that I was no longer single; they were nicer.
Men who never looked at me would start up a conversation,
like I was suddenly some safer form of fire. ~ Ada Limon

He jumped lightly to the ground and turned to help Ada down. He lifted her, his hands around her waist. Mercy, but the woman felt good in his arms. Smelled good too, like warm skin and some kind of exotic flower. ~ Dorothy Love

So, Jessamine," said Lucie. "Can ghosts lie?"
"Certainly not!" Jessamine looked shifty. "Ghosts are completely honest. I keep telling you, it was mice who knocked your silver mirror behind the desk and broke it."
"It appears clear that if ghosts are liars, they are terrible liars," said James.
Matthew sighed. "It is very strange to see you conversing with the invisible."
"Humph," said Jessamine. She wobbled a bit and firmed up, her outlines clearing as she drifted down toward the floor. Shadowhunters, having the Sight, could generally see ghosts who wanted to be seen, but Lucie knew it was an effort for Jessamine to make herself visible to all eyes.
"Oh!" said Cordelia. "It's very nice to meet you, Jessamine. Lucie speaks of you often."
Jessamine beamed.
"You are a very attractive ghost," said Matthew, tapping his ringed fingers against his chest. "I do hope Lucie and James have mentioned as much."
"They have not," Jessamine noted.
"Very remiss," said Matthew, his eyes sparkling.
"You are not at all like Henry," said Jessamine, eyeing Matthew speculatively. "He was forever setting things on fire, and not a compliment to be heard."
"Jessamine," Lucie said. "This is important! Do tell us, can ghosts lie? Not you, of course, my dear."
"Ghosts can lie," Jessamine conceded. ~ Cassandra Clare

My credo is very short. Its first article is art - and its second is art - and its third is art! ~ Mary Augusta Ward

Desire is a tricky thing, the boiling of the body's wants, ~ Ada Limon

The first place to start is on enforcement. We who got the ADA passed did the hard part, the heavy lifting. ~ Major Owens

...this life is a fist
of fast wishes caught by nothing
but the fishhook of tomorrow's tug. ~ Ada Limon

We enjoy the great prophets of literature most when we have not yet lived enough to realize all they tell us. ~ Mary Augusta Ward

- i would thank you, but we both know you don't deserve it. ~ Amanda Lovelace

But perhaps people who liked to write aways made lists! Just for the fun of it. ~ Maud Hart Lovelace

The boring parts don't last forever. In retrospect, they aren't even boring. ~ Ada Calhoun

When she was dying, it was impossible to see forward to the next minute. What was happening - for whole weeks - was all that was happening and happening and happening. Months before that, I got the dumb soup wrong. How awful. It was all she wanted and I had gotten it wrong. Then, in the airless days when it was really happening, we started to power panic that we didn't know enough. What should we do with your ashes? Water or dirt. Water or dirt. Once, she asked to just be thrown into the river where we used to go, still alive, but not living anymore. After it was done, I couldn't go back to my life. You understand, right? It wasn't the same. I couldn't tell if I loved myself more or less. It wasn't until later, when I moved in with him and stood outside on our patchy imperfect lawn, that I remembered what had been circling in me: I am beautiful. I am full of love. I am dying. ~ Ada Limon

To win at Augusta and to win The Open Championship at St. Andrews, it's hard to put it into words as a golfer, as an athlete, as a guy - I'm not rich in history, I can tell you that. I'm not a great historian. ~ Zach Johnson

[Their marriage] will not be all cakes and ale.... They are too much alike to be the ideal match. Patty is thick-skinned and passionate, too ready to be hurt to the heart by the mere little pinpricks and mosquito bites of life; and Paul is proud and crotchety, and, like the great Napoleon, given to kick the fire with his boots when he is put out. There will be many little gusts of temper, little clouds of misunderstanding, disappointments, and bereavements, and sickness of mind and body; but with all this, they will find their lot so blessed, by reason of the mutual love and sympathy tat, through all the vicissitudes, will surely grow deeper and stronger every day they live together, that they will not know how to conceive a better one. ~ Ada Cambridge

Since ancient days there has been a name for Senatorial recommendations that carry the force, not of law, but of the Will of the Leviathan, but the name is Latin, and we cannot say Senatus Consultum without implying that the Latin-speaking Masons somehow own this, much as we half believe they own all Romanova, built for us by MASONS past. So we instead say 'Senatorial Consult,' which translates to 'Let's pretend we aren't thinking about Masons right now.' Of course we are. ~ Ada Palmer

flowers
grow
wherever
his
fingertips
graze
me.

- my sun & rain. ~ Amanda Lovelace