Michael Faraday > Quotes

“Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of nature.”
― Michael Faraday

“There’s nothing quite as frightening as someone who knows they are right.”
― Michael Faraday

“It is right that we should stand by and act on our principles; but not right to hold them in obstinate blindness, or retain them when proved to be erroneous.”
― Michael Faraday

“A man who is certain he is right is almost sure to be wrong.”
― Michael Faraday

“But still try for who knows what is possible!”
― Michael Faraday

“Shall we educate ourselves in what is known, and then casting away all we have acquired, turn to ignorance for aid to guide us among the unknown?”
― Michael Faraday

“No matter what you look at, if you look at it closely enough, you are involved in the entire universe.”
― Faraday Michael

“I will simply express my strong belief, that that point of self-education which consists in teaching the mind to resist its desires and inclinations, until they are proved to be right, is the most important of all, not only in things of natural philosophy, but in every department of daily life.”
― Michael Faraday

“In place of practising wholesome self-abnegation, we ever make the wish the father to the thought: we receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us; whereas the very reverse is required by every dictate of common sense.”
― Michael Faraday

“Who would not have been laughed at if he had said in 1800 that metals could be extracted from their ores by electricity or that portraits could be drawn by chemistry.

{Commenting on Henri Becquerel's process for extracting metals by voltaic means.}”
― Michael Faraday, The Letters of Faraday and Schoenbein, 1836-1862, with Notes, Comments and References to Contemporary Letters

“I hope that in due time the chemists will justify their proceedings by some large generalisations deduced from the infinity of results which they have collected. For me I am left hopelessly behind and I will acknowledge to you that through my bad memory organic chemistry is to me a sealed book. Some of those here, Hofmann for instance, consider all this however as scaffolding, which will disappear when the structure is built. I hope the structure will be worthy of the labour. I should expect a better and a quicker result from the study of the powers of matter, but then I have a predilection that way and am probably prejudiced in judgment.”
― Michael Faraday

“Nature is our kindest friend and best critic in experimental science if we only allow her intimations to fall unbiased on our minds.”
― Michael Faraday

“candle.”
― Michael Faraday, The Chemical History of a Candle

“Do not refer to your toy-books, and say you have seen that before. Answer me rather, if I ask you, have you understood it before?”
― Michael Faraday

“To day we made the grand experiment of burning the diamond and certainly the phenomena presented were extremely beautiful and interesting... The Duke's burning glass was the instrument used to apply heat to the diamond. It consists of two double convex lenses ... The instrument was placed in an upper room of the museum and having arranged it at the window the diamond was placed in the focus and anxiously watched. The heat was thus continued for 3/4 of an hour (it being necessary to cool the globe at times) and during that time it was thought that the diamond was slowly diminishing and becoming opaque ... On a sudden Sir H Davy observed the diamond to burn visibly, and when removed from the focus it was found to be in a state of active and rapid combustion. The diamond glowed brilliantly with a scarlet light, inclining to purple and, when placed in the dark, continued to burn for about four minutes. After cooling the glass heat was again applied to the diamond and it burned again though not for nearly so long as before. This was repeated twice more and soon after the diamond became all consumed. This phenomenon of actual and vivid combustion, which has never been observed before, was attributed by Sir H Davy to be the free access of air; it became more dull as carbonic acid gas formed and did not last so long.”
― Michael Faraday

“The force of the temptation which urges us to seek for such evidence and appearances as are in favour of our desires, and to disregard those which oppose them, is wonderfully great. In this respect we are all, more or less, active promoters of error. In place of practising wholesome self-abnegation, we ever make the wish the father to the thought: we receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us; whereas the very reverse is required by every dictate of common sense.”
― Michael Faraday

“…we receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us; whereas the very reverse is required by every dictate of common sense.”
― Michael Faraday, Experimental researches in chemistry and physics

“but let me, as an old man, who ought by this time to have profited by experience, say that when I was younger, I found I often misinterpreted the intentions of people, and found they did not mean what at the time I supposed they meant; and, further, that as a general rule, it was better to be a little dull of apprehension, where phrases seemed to imply pique, and quick in perception, when on the contrary they seemed to imply kindly feeling. The real truth never fails ultimately to appear; and opposing parties if wrong, are sooner convinced when replied to forbearingly, than when overwhelmed. All I mean to say is, that it is better to be blind to the results of partisanship, and quick to see good will. One has more happiness in oneself, in endeavoring to follow the things that make for peace. You can hardly imagine how often I have been heated in private when opposed, as I have thought unjustly and superciliously, and yet I have striven, and succeeded I hope, in keeping down replies of the like kind. And I know I have never lost by it. I would not say all this to you did I not esteem, you as a true philosopher and friend.”
― Michael Faraday

“The five essential entrepreneurial skills for success are concentration, discrimination, organization, innovation, and communication”
― Michael Faraday

“I hold my theories on the tips of my fingers, so that the merest breath of fact will blow them away.”
― Michael Faraday

“Studiando, noi diventiamo tutti filosofi; dovrete dunque avvezzarvi, ogni volta che un risultato vi sorprende, specialmente quando questo risultato vi par nuovo, dovrete avvezzarvi, dico, a chiedere a voi stessi o ad altri: «Quale è la causa di ciò? Perché le cose succedono a questo modo?» E presto o tardi finirete sempre col trovare la risposta.”
― Michael Faraday, The Chemical History of a Candle: Enriched edition. Unlocking the Mysteries of Chemical Reactions in a Candle's Flame

“Bacon in his instruction tells us that the scientific student ought not to be as the ant, who gathers merely, nor as the spider who spins from her own bowels, but rather as the bee who both gathers and produces. All this is true of the teaching afforded by any part of physical science. Electricity is often called wonderful, beautiful; but it is so only in common with the other forces of nature. The beauty of electricity or of any other force is not that the power is mysterious, and unexpected, touching every sense at unawares in turn, but that it is under law, and that the taught intellect can even now govern it largely.”
― Michael Faraday

“Non saprei meglio terminare le nostre conversazioni che esprimendo il desiderio che possiate nella vostra esistenza meritare d'essere comparati ad una candela; che possiate com'essa brillare qual fiamma per coloro che vi circondano, che possiate in tutte le vostre azioni emulare la bellezza del lucignolo, adempiendo con onore ed efficacia i vostri doveri verso i vostri simili.”
― Michael Faraday, The Chemical History of a Candle: Enriched edition. Unlocking the Mysteries of Chemical Reactions in a Candle's Flame

“See how beautifully these are coloured: you see here mauve, magenta, and all the chemical colours recently introduced, applied to candles.”
― Michael Faraday, The Chemical History of a Candle: 1848 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures

“Indeed, all I can say to you at the end of these lectures (for we must come to an end at one time or other) is to express a wish that you may, in your generation, be fit to compare to a candle; that you may, like it, shine as lights to those about you; that, in all your actions, you may justify the beauty of the taper by making your deeds honourable and effectual in the discharge of your duty to your fellow-men.”
― Michael Faraday, The Chemical History of a Candle

“So are we made dependent, not merely upon our fellow-creatures, but upon our fellow-existers, all Nature being tied together by the laws that make one part conduce to the good of another.”
― Michael Faraday, The Chemical History of a Candle

“How shall we get at this? I myself know plenty of ways, but I want you to get at it from the association in your own minds of what I have already told you.”
― Michael Faraday, The Chemical History of a Candle

“have done the best I could under the circumstances; and I know your kindness well, for if I were not aware that I might trust to it, I would not appear here so often as I have done. The gradual loss of memory and of my other faculties is making itself painfully evident to me, and requires, every time I appear before you, the continued remembrance of your kindness to enable me to get through my task.”
― Michael Faraday, The Chemical History of a Candle

“shew this to you to-day, in order to enlarge your ideas of these things, and that you may see how greatly results are modified by circumstances.”
― Michael Faraday, The Chemical History of a Candle

“I am no poet, but if you think for yourselves, as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your minds.”
― Michael Faraday