"Calculator" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sometimes I have been troubled that I had not a deeper intuitive apprehension of the relations of numbers. But the triumph of the ciphering hand-organ has consoled me. I always fancy I can hear the wheels clicking in a calculator's brain. The power of dealing with numbers is a kind of "detached lever" arrangement, which may be put into a mighty poor watch—I suppose it is about as common as the power of moving the ears voluntarily, which is ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the battle-field; faith in a star, blended with strategic science, heightening, but troubling it. Wellington was the Bareme of war, Napoleon was its Michelangelo, and this true genius was conquered by calculation. On both sides somebody was expected; and it was the exact calculator who succeeded. Napoleon waited for Grouchy, who did not come; Wellington waited ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... good daughter? hath some palmister, Some augur, or some dreaming calculator (For such, I know, you often hearken to), Been prating 'gainst the name? go to, go to; Do not believe them. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... special circumstance to confound the cavillers, the children and youth of the schools were found to have been more generally preserved from falling into the class of premature delinquents, than a moral calculator, keeping in sight the quality of human nature and the immediate pressure of so much temptation, would have ventured to anticipate, upon the moderate estimate of the efficacy ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... became a thorough Copernican, and as he had a most singularly restless and inquisitive mind, full of appreciation of everything relating to number and magnitude—was a born speculator and thinker just as Mozart was a born musician, or Bidder a born calculator—he was agitated by questions such as these: Why are there exactly six planets? Is there any connection between their orbital distances, or between their orbits and the times of describing them? These things tormented ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... Venice he found a group of young men, most of them Spaniards, all of them seekers after perfection, united otherwise in a somewhat vague design of visiting the Holy Land. Their leader, Ignatius Loyola, at that time an enthusiast, later on a calculator and organiser of the first class, was the same man who helped to transplant to Rome the Inquisition of his own country. As they waited in vain for a passage, Carana advised them that their true destination was Rome, where they would be ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... calculator you are, Albert! Besides, if things came to the worst, there's that five hundred dollars I lent your father twenty-seven years ago. No doubt you'd pay me ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... and you will bring out the correct (though uninteresting) result, 0 0! This will show you that it is hopeless to try to coax any one of these 3 unknowns to reveal its separate value. The other competitor, who is wrong throughout, is either J. M. C. or T. M. C.: but, whether he be a Juvenile Mis-Calculator or a True Mathematician Confused, he makes the answers 7d. and 1s. 5d. He assumes, with Too Much Confidence, that biscuits were 1/2d. each, and that Clara paid for 8, ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... calculator on gettin' neighborhood news can't even look into that land, much less foller a ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... at a few more expositions of the lives of Misers, Mr Venus became almost indispensable to the evenings at the Bower. The circumstance of having another listener to the wonders unfolded by Wegg, or, as it were, another calculator to cast up the guineas found in teapots, chimneys, racks and mangers, and other such banks of deposit, seemed greatly to heighten Mr Boffin's enjoyment; while Silas Wegg, for his part, though of a jealous temperament which might under ordinary circumstances have resented the anatomist's getting ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... culinary operations are accurately ascertained. We have furnished hundreds of them to subscribers, and they give entire satisfaction. During January, 1884, to any person sending us THREE SUBSCRIBERS, at $2.00 each, we will give one of these scales, and to each of the three subscribers Ropp's Calculator, No. 1. ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... a poor marine, a recruit from Portsmouth, unfortunately fell overboard; and though many brave fellows instantly jumped into one of the quarter-boats, and begged to be lowered down to save him, the captain, who was a cool calculator, thought the chance of losing seven men was greater than that of saving one, so the poor fellow was left to his fate. The ship, it is true, was hove to; but she drifted to leeward much faster than the unfortunate man could swim, though he was one ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Japan is unknown, but it was probably about the end of the fourth century A.D. It is a sufficiently accurate manner of counting so long as the tale of cycles is carefully kept, but any neglect in that respect exposes the calculator to an error of sixty years or some multiple of sixty. Keen scrutiny and collation of the histories of China, Korea, and Japan have exposed a mistake of at least 120 years connected with the earliest employment of the sexagenary ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... table which was littered with graphs, sketches of mathematical functions, and books of tensor formulae. Beside the table stood a Munson-Bradley integraph calculator which one of the men was using to check some of the equations he had already derived. The results they were getting seemed to indicate something well above and beyond ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... favour of the strangers. 'Sirs Lamas,' said the banker, 'your mathematics are better than mine.' 'Oh, not at all,' replied we, with a profound bow; 'your souan-pan is excellent; but who ever heard of a calculator always exempt from error?' These phrases were, it seems, rigorously required under the circumstances by Chinese politeness. Whenever any person in China is compromised by any awkward incident, those present always carefully refrain from any observation which may make him blush, or, as the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... and refinements, are the work of those whom idleness makes weary of themselves. The commerce of the world is carried on by easy methods of computation. Subtilty and study are required only when questions are invented merely to puzzle, and calculations are extended to show the skill of the calculator. The light of the sun is equally beneficial to him whose eyes tell him that it moves, and to him whose reason persuades him that it stands still; and plants grow with the same luxuriance, whether we suppose earth or water the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... anybody if they've a mind to do themselves justice. There's a young man of two-and-twenty I've got my eye on now. I shall do what I can for that young man; he's got some pith in him. But then, you see, he's made good use of his time,—a first-rate calculator,— can tell you the cubic contents of anything in no time, and put me up the other day to a new market for Swedish bark; he's uncommonly knowing in manufactures, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... ignominiously reduced to the obvious topic. To us, instead of being a mere prelude to more serious matters, or the last resort of a feeble intellect, it was the all-engrossing theme. The man with the latest hare-brained theory of the causation of the wind was accorded a full hearing. The lightning calculator who estimated the annual tonnage of drift-snow sweeping off Adelie Land was received as a futurist and thinker. Discussion was always free, and the subject was never thrashed out. Evidence on the great topic accumulated day by day and month by month; yet there was ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... and truest and sweetest character in literature, is next to Buddha, Jesus Christ. He taught nothing new in goodness, for all goodness was ages old before he came; but with an almost infallible intuition he applied to life and conduct the entire law of righteousness. He was a lightning moral calculator: to his luminous intelligence the statement of the problem carried the solution—he could not hesitate, he seldom erred. That upon his deeds and words was founded a religion which in a debased form persists and even spreads to this day is mere attestation of his marvelous gift: adoration ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... modes of calculation, attaining such skill and accuracy as to solve the most difficult problems. Depending upon his own system of mental arithmetic he learned to obtain accurate results just as quickly as Mr. Zerah Colburn, a noted calculator of that day, who tested the Negro mathematician.[1] The most abstruse questions in relation to time, distance, and space were no task for his miraculous memory, which, when the mathematician was interrupted in the midst of a long and tedious calculation, enabled him ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... his offices, and the main calculator room. There were ten calculator tables here, two of them in ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... equilibriums and redistributions only diversify our opportunities and open chances to us for new ideals. But, with each new ideal that comes into life, the chance for a life based on some old ideal will vanish; and he would needs be a presumptuous calculator who should with confidence say that the total sum of significances is positively and absolutely greater at any one epoch than at ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... on a man-servant who is lecturing her. He is a middle-aged man of cool temperament and low but clear and keen intelligence, with the complacency of the servant who values himself on his rank in servility, and the imperturbability of the accurate calculator who has no illusions. He wears a white Bulgarian costume jacket with decorated harder, sash, wide knickerbockers, and decorated gaiters. His head is shaved up to the crown, giving him a high Japanese forehead. His ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... govern by severities. The energy of Collot gave new life to his party, whilst Danton displayed no resource. Just then, Robespierre was taken ill, and from February 19 to March 13 he was confined to his room. Robespierre was a calculator and a tactician, methodical in his ways, definite and measured in his ends. He was less remarkable for determination and courage; and thus two men of uncommon energy now took the lead. They were Billaud-Varennes ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... was waiting for him. She was short, bony, and plain of face. She had a figure like an ironing board and the soul of a Ramsden calculator. Mike the Angel liked her that way; it ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... and the merit of seeking it was entirely Gainsborough's. It is singular that any facts should be so perverted, as to justify an insinuation that Reynolds, whose whole life exhibited the continued acts of a kind heart, was a cautious and cold calculator. Good sense has ever a reserve of manner, the result of a habit of thinking—and in one of a high aim, it is apt to acquire almost a stateliness; but even such stateliness is not inconsistent with modesty and with feeling; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... mistaken. He proved himself far from a good calculator. On Sunday he gratified an unusually healthy appetite, besides buying two five-cent cigars. This made necessary an outlay of seventy-five cents. The next day also he overran his allowance. The consequence was that on Wednesday night ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger
... the vessel is exposed to the ravages of any sea, larger than common, that may happen to strike her as she lies nearly motionless, with her broadside exposed to its force. To accomplish it, therefore, Captain Truck went up a few ratlines in the fore-rigging, (he was too nice a calculator to offer even a surface as small as his own body to the wind, in the after shrouds,) whence he looked out to windward for a lull, and a moment when the ocean had fewer billows than common of the larger and more dangerous kind. At the desired instant he signed with his hand, and the ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... are so valuable, that if the discovery can be reduced to economical practice, there is no doubt that the hitherto wasted and unrecognised substance will be turned to good account. The other is the 'Platometer,' invented by Mr Sang of Kirkcaldy, described as a 'self-acting calculator of surface;' in other words, by using this contrivance, you may get the 'square measure included within any boundary-line around which a pen attached to the instrument may be carried'—in the plan of an estate, or a map, for example, where the plots of ground ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... Joffrin a plurality of the votes to be recognised, sundry newspapers actually printed the name of M. Joffrin at the head of the list of candidates in the place usually accorded by a really enlightened press to the elect of universal suffrage. Unfortunately the official calculator is not of the blood of Bidder. It was found at the last moment that enough votes had not been 'annulled' to put M. Joffrin at the head of the poll, so that his name actually appears in sundry Parisian morning papers ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... moreover, "a close calculator," and, with a wisdom worthy of all imitation, never mortgaged the future for the convenience of the present. Indeed, this power of "calculation" was not only a talent but a passion: you would have thought that his progenitors had been arithmeticians ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... into the main tubes. The ship bucked slightly, raised itself from the ground slowly, and then suddenly shot upward. In less than a minute the Polaris had cleared atmosphere and Tom turned on the artificial-gravity generators. He made a quick computation on the planetary calculator, fired the port steering rockets, and sent the ship in a long arching course for Venusport. Then, unstrapping himself, he turned to see how Mr. and Mrs. Hill ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... caustic manner, and an irresistible stammer" ('Life of Rev, F. Hodgson', vol. i. p. 204), Davies was, during the Regency and afterwards, a popular member of fashionable society. A daring gambler and shrewd calculator, he at one time won heavily at the gaming-tables. On June 10, 1814, as he told Hobhouse, he won L6065 at Watier's Club at Macao. Captain Cronow, in his 'Reminiscences' (ed. 1860, vol. i. pp. 93-96), sketches him among "Golden Ball" Hughes, "King" Allen, and other ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... think that there was in the fifteenth century a Frenchman so profound a calculator that he discovered for the King of France a secret cypher, used by the court of Spain. I saw a notice of him in Collier's great Dictionary, but have forgotten him, and should ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various
... eighteenth year. Old Mrs. Leaker was, I calculated, born about 1774. She would therefore have been six years old in 1780. But a man who was ninety-five in 1780 would have been born in 1685, and so twenty-nine in 1714, the year of Blenheim. Possibly some historical calculator will despoil me of this story. Meantime, I am always thrilled to think that I have seen a woman who had seen a man who had been in action with the great Marlborough ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... himself a bad disciplinarian. Nor had he even average powers of organization. He was in the field quite careless of the minutiae of drill. But he had a singularly happy faculty for choosing men to do his work for him. He was a very close calculator of all his movements. He worked out his manoeuvres to the barest mathematical chances, and insisted upon the unerring execution of what he prescribed; and above all be believed in mystery. Of his entire command, he alone knew ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... addressed to S. Kirkham, by the Rev. J. Stockton, author of the "Western Calculator" ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... his religion. He was indeed flighty and half witted, but not on that account the less dangerous. Indeed a flighty and half witted man is the very instrument generally preferred by cunning politicians when very hazardous work is to be done. No shrewd calculator would, for any bribe, however enormous, have exposed himself to the fate of Chatel, of Ravaillac, or ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... very profitable at the country-house of Voltaire, at Ferney, near Geneva. A Genevese, an excellent calculator, as are all his countrymen, many years ago valued as follows the yearly profit derived by the ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... a lightnin' calculator. He stands there with his mouth open, gawpin' at me, and tryin' to figure out what's broke loose; so I pushes to the front and helps ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford |
