Real — and unusually well documented. Lovelace wrote it to Charles Babbage in a letter docketed Wednesday, 5 July [1843], now British Library Add MSS 37192, fol. 349, and transcribed in Dorothy Stein’s Ada: A Life and a Legacy (MIT Press, 1985), p. 110. The popular version stops one clause early: in the manuscript the sentence runs on into a joke about her own failing health.
“That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal, as time will show” That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal; as time will show — Ada Lovelace, letter to Charles Babbage, 5 July 1843 (British Library, Add MSS 37192, fol. 349). Verified at quotle.info
Can you use it?
⚠ Credit is settled: these are Lovelace’s own words, from her letter to Charles Babbage of 5 July 1843 (British Library, Add MSS 37192, fol. 349) — name her and cite the letter. Reuse is the open question: we could not establish when the passage was first published, so we make no public-domain claim. A short, credited quote in a talk or a deck is low-risk; for commercial or large-scale reuse, check the rights.
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In context
Evoking the world of Ada Lovelace — English mathematician · Charles Babbage's collaborator. Theme: "That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal, as time will show". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal, as time will show". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
The letter
Source
Letter to Charles Babbage
Date
Wednesday, 5 July [1843], Ockham Park — the year supplied editorially, as it is in both Stein’s and Toole’s editions
Manuscript
British Library, Add MSS 37192, fol. 349
Transcribed in
Dorothy Stein, Ada: A Life and a Legacy (MIT Press, 1985), 110
“Why does my friend prefer imaginary roots for our friendship?” Just because she happens to have some of that very imagination which you would deny her to possess; & therefore she enjoys a little play & scope for it now & then. Besides this, I deny the Fairyism to be entirely imaginary; (& it is to the fairy similies [sic] that I suppose you allude). That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal; as time will show; (if only my breathing & some other et-ceteras do not make too rapid a progress towards instead of from mortality). Before ten years are over, the Devil’s in it if I haven’t sucked out some of the life-blood from the mysteries of this universe, in a way that no purely mortal lips or brains could do.
Letter to Charles Babbage, 5 July 1843
Stein’s account frames the passage as a reply: Babbage had demurred at the mystical, fairy-tinged way Lovelace described her own mind, and this is her answer. Betty Toole’s edition of the letters prints the signature as “Your Fairy for ever A.A.L.” Ampersands and italics follow the manuscript as transcribed. The wording here follows the Stein (1985) rendering as quoted at Today in Science History, which reads “haven’t” where Toole and The Marginalian both read “have not.”
The circulating one-liner arrives without provenance: LibQuotes ↗ gives the clipped wording and credits only “Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers (ed. Cartech Incorporated, 1992)” — no letter, no date, no recipient.
The fuller passage, and the recipient, are not in doubt: The Marginalian ↗ quotes the sentence complete with its parenthesis about her breathing and identifies the letter as one to Charles Babbage.
The manuscript itself is citable: Today in Science History ↗ gives British Library Additional Manuscripts, MSS 37192, folio 349, letter to Charles Babbage (5 Jul 1843), as cited in Dorothy Stein, Ada: A Life and a Legacy (1985), 110 — and Stein’s own endnote for that page dates fol. 349 to “Wednesday, 5 July [1843].”
The docket and the full passage are corroborated outside Stein: in 1993 Betty Toole, editor of Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers, posted her own transcriptions ↗, where this letter is headed “Letter 8. To Charles Babbage, Wednesday, 5 July [1843] Ockham Park” — same weekday, same editorially supplied year — and carries the passage entire, signed “Your Fairy for ever A.A.L.”
The timing fits the biography exactly: Wikipedia ↗ records that her translation and seven Notes — including Note G’s Bernoulli-number method — were published in the September 1843 Taylor’s Scientific Memoirs, which is what she was racing to finish that July.
Honest answer: we cannot settle this. The letter was written in 1843 by an author who died in 1852, so the text carries no living authorial interest — but rights in the United States turn on first publication, and we could not establish when this passage first appeared in print. The earliest appearance we verified is Dorothy Stein’s Ada: A Life and a Legacy (MIT Press, 1985); US law treats long-unpublished pre-1978 manuscripts idiosyncratically, so we will not assert public domain on a source we have not dated. The manuscript itself is held by the British Library (Add MSS 37192); Stein’s transcription and editorial apparatus are her own work and remain in copyright.
Fact-check
What the internet gets wrong
The attribution here is sound — Lovelace wrote these words. What goes wrong is everything around them: the wording is clipped, the recipient is invented, and the source is filed to the wrong document.
✕
The wording“…as time will show.” — full stop Truncated
The manuscript has a semicolon, not a period. The sentence continues: “(if only my breathing & some other et-ceteras do not make too rapid a progress towards instead of from mortality).” Aggregators such as LibQuotes ↗ carry only the clipped half, with no letter, date or recipient attached.
✕
The recipient“A private letter to her mother, Lady Byron” Invented
A claim repeated verbatim across quote sites — one example states it plainly ↗ while citing no letter, date or archive. The passage is from her Babbage correspondence, as The Marginalian ↗ notes when quoting it in full.
✕
The source documentHer published Notes on the Analytical Engine Wrong work
Quote Catalog ↗ files the line under “Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage.” That is the 1843 translation-plus-Notes she published; this sentence is from a private letter written while she was finishing it, and never appeared in the Notes.
✓The real thing: a letter to Charles Babbage docketed Wednesday, 5 July [1843] — British Library Add MSS 37192, fol. 349 — transcribed in Dorothy Stein’s Ada: A Life and a Legacy (1985) at p. 110, with the citation also set out at Today in Science History ↗.
Context
Why it mattered
The letter was written in the thick of the most productive nine months of her life. In the summer of 1843 Lovelace was finishing the seven Notes to her translation of Menabrea’s paper on the Analytical Engine — including Note G and its Bernoulli-number method — which appeared that September in Taylor’s Scientific Memoirs. The boast has a deadline attached: “Before ten years are over…”
Read in context it is also a retort. Stein’s account has Babbage gently needling Lovelace about the mystical, fairy-flavoured way she described her own mind; this passage is her answer, and the letter is signed “Yours Fairy for ever.” The line that gets pinned to inspirational posters as serene self-belief was, on the page, closer to a dare thrown at a colleague.
The boast has a deadline attached — and she did not get her ten years. Lovelace died in 1852, nine years later.
About the truncation
The manuscript sentence is: “That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal; as time will show; (if only my breathing & some other et-ceteras do not make too rapid a progress towards instead of from mortality).” The parenthesis is doing real work — she is punning on “mortal,” and gesturing at the ill health that dogged her.
The circulating version cuts at the second semicolon and closes with a full stop, which converts a wry, hedged, self-aware claim into a flat prophecy. Nothing was fabricated; something was amputated.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1815–1852 · English mathematician · Charles Babbage’s collaborator
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer, the only legitimate child of Lord Byron. Between 1842 and 1843 she translated Luigi Menabrea’s paper on Charles Babbage’s proposed Analytical Engine and appended seven explanatory notes roughly three times longer than the translation itself, published in the September 1843 Taylor’s Scientific Memoirs under the initials AAL. Note G, describing a method for computing Bernoulli numbers on the engine, is often called the first published computer program.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source — Chicago
Ada Lovelace to Charles Babbage, Wednesday, 5 July [1843], British Library, Additional MSS 37192, fol. 349; transcribed in Dorothy Stein, Ada: A Life and a Legacy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985), 110.
MLA (9th ed.)
Lovelace, Ada. Letter to Charles Babbage. 5 July 1843. British Library, Add MS 37192, fol. 349. Transcribed in Dorothy Stein, Ada: A Life and a Legacy, MIT Press, 1985, p. 110.
APA (7th ed.)
Lovelace, A. (1843, July 5). [Letter to Charles Babbage]. British Library, Add MS 37192, fol. 349. As cited in D. Stein (1985), Ada: A life and a legacy (p. 110). MIT Press.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal, as time will show’?” Last verified 15 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/that-brain-of-mine-is-something-more-than-merely-mortal-as