I mean to do what I mean to do. — Ada Lovelace · Smartyfair

Leave without saving?

You have a change that hasn’t been saved yet. Clicking out of the box saves it — closing now throws that change away.

I mean to do what I mean to do. — Ada Lovelace · Smartyfair

I mean to do what I mean to do.

Ada Lovelace1815–1852 · computer scientist · 1800s EnglandAda Lovelace was an English mathematician who worked with inventor Charles Babbage on an early mechanical computer called the Analytical Engine.4 quotes

Source foundIndividuality

In plain words

When she decided on something, she did it.

Look up a word

mean

Where these words come from

How sure this is: 95% sureThese words were traced back to where they first appeared. That source is listed below.
What turned up: Letter to Andrew Crosse, Englische Studien Vol. 19 (1894), p. 157 ('Byron's Daughter' article) — full sentence: 'I mean to do what I mean to do,' closing a passage about her family's willpower. Fetched and confirmed verbatim.
Work: Letter to Andrew Crosse, printed in Englische Studien Vol. 19 (1894)
Occasion: circa 1844 · Ashley Combe, Somersetshire
Sources checked: ia801408.us.archive.orgChecked using claude-sonnet-5, 21 August 2026full OCR text, p.157, letter beginning 'My Dear Mr Crosse'

Nothing made from these words yet — is where they get made.

More from Ada Lovelace

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

More on individuality

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

1800s

We may say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves.

Ada Lovelace

It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform.

Not all who wander are lost.

J.R.R. Tolkien

'Know thyself' was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, 'Be thyself' shall be written.

We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.