"The Analytical
Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate
anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to
perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of
anticipating any analytical relations or truths. Its province is
to assist us to making available what we are already acquainted
with." — Ada Lovelace
"Presumably man's spirit should be elevated if he can better review his shady past and analyze more completely and objectively his present problems. He has built a civilization so complex that he needs to mechanize his records more fully if he is to push his experiment to its logical conclusion and not merely become bogged down part way there by overtaxing his limited memory. His excursions may be more enjoyable if he can reacquire the privilege of forgetting the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand, with some assurance that he can find them again if they prove important."
— Vannevar Bush in
As We May Think
"The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths. Its province is to assist us to making available what we are already acquainted with." — Ada Lovelace
