Ada Lovelace

"Could you not give me a little, say one page of mathematical truth?"

"Your friend, Ada"

"It strikes me that the most important thing is to have at all times a firm and unshaken conviction that my nature and constitution are suited to those pursuits, with which I have been connected."

"I am by no means pleased with what I have hitherto accomplished."

"The imaginative faculty is one that I am always anxious to strengthen and improve."

"I must beg you to excuse my not writing sooner."

"I wish to add my mite towards expounding & interpreting the Hideous, Incomprehensible Athenaeum of Nature."

"Do not fear. You have within you all the strength you need to accomplish your destiny."

"The day may come when the whole of applied science is reduced to the perfection of machinery by the principle of mathematics."

"I am now going to take the liberty of asking you a question."

"My heart is at ease, and I have every reason to believe that it will remain so."

"In the first place, I should like to know what you have been about lately."

"I am much pleased with the success that has attended your efforts."

"The Jacquard loom is to the Analytical Engine what the alphabet is to language."

"It may be that I am inciting you to the most foolish of all undertakings."

"I do believe that I shall now take the field openly and fearlessly."

"Surely if I can grapple successfully with the very hardest and most intricate of subjects, I have a pretty good right to consider myself a woman of some acquaintance with difficulties."

"I am much struck by your observation that I have the faculty of working."

"My own little experiments in life have not lead to any results very flattering to vanity."

"I am excessively annoyed at your having altered my Note. You know I am always willing to make any required alterations myself."

"The thinking principle, if I understand correctly, may be made to appear and work in a machine as well as it appears in the human mind."

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it; believe nothing, no matter if it has been said by an authority; believe only what you yourself test and know to be true."

"I am amazed at the fecundity of your mind."

"Intention and meaning must exist when there is a creation of any kind."

"I never like to dwell on my own affairs when interesting subjects are under discussion."

"My mother never understood me, and I never understood my mother."

"I do not think I am at all likely to set the Thames on fire."

"It is absolutely necessary that I should have some clearer and more decided information respecting your circumstances."

"I believe that I have been made for a purpose—though I do not yet see how."

"The great object of my life has been to observe and to understand, rather than to rule or control."