Michael Faraday Quotes

I cannot conceive curved lines of force without the conditions of a physical existence in that intermediate space.

A man in twenty-four hours converts as much as seven ounces of carbon into carbonic acid; a milch cow will convert seventy ounces, and a horse seventy-nine ounces, solely by the act of respiration. That is, the horse in twenty-four hours burns seventy-nine ounces of charcoal, or carbon, in his organs of respiration to supply his natural warmth in that time ... , not in a free state, but in a state of combination.

Nothing is to wonderful to be true

But still try for who knows what is possible!

I ... 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.

I have far more confidence in the one man who works mentally and bodily at a matter than in the six who merely talk about it.

Chemistry is necessarily an experimental science: its conclusions are drawn from data, and its principles supported by evidence from facts.

The condition of matter I have dignified by the term Electronic, THE ELECTRONIC STATE. What do you think of that? Am I not a bold man, ignorant as I am, to coin words?

There's nothing quite as frightening as someone who knows they are right.

Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of nature.

Tyndall, ... I must remain plain Michael Faraday to the last; and let me now tell you, that if accepted the honour which the Royal Society desires to confer upon me, I would not answer for the integrity of my intellect for a single year.

I can at any moment convert my time into money, but I do not require more of the latter than is sufficient for necessary purposes.

Water is to me, I confess, a phenomenon which continually awakens new feelings of wonder as often as I view it.

What a delight it is to think that you are quietly & philosophically at work in the pursuit of science ... rather than fighting amongst the crowd of black passions & motives that seem now a days to urge men every where into action. What incredible scenes every where, what unworthy motives ruled for the moment, under high sounding phrases and at the last what disgusting revolutions.

With respect to Committees as you would perceive I am very jealous of their formation. I mean working committees. I think business is always better done by few than by many. I think also the working few ought not to be embaras[s]ed by the idle many and further I think the idle many ought not to be honoured by association with the working few.-I do not think that my patience has ever come nearer to an end than when compelled to hear ... long rambling malapropros enquiries of members who still have nothing in consequence to propose that shall advance the business.

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.

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.

I have taken your advice, and the names used are anode cathode anions cations and ions; the last I shall have but little occasion for. I had some hot objections made to them here and found myself very much in the condition of the man with his son and ass who tried to please every body; but when I held up the shield of your authority, it was wonderful to observe how the tone of objection melted away.

It is the great beauty of our science, chemistry, that advancement in it, whether in a degree great or small, instead of exhausting the subjects of research, opens the doors to further and more abundant knowledge, overflowing with beauty and utility.

Why will people go astray when they have this blessed Book to guide them?

A man who is certain he is right is almost sure to be wrong.

I have been so electrically occupied of late that I feel as if hungry for a little chemistry: but then the conviction crosses my mind that these things hang together under one law & that the more haste we make onwards each in his own path the sooner we shall arrive, and meet each other, at that state of knowledge of natural causes from which all varieties of effects may be understood & enjoyed.

As when on some secluded branch in forest far and wide sits perched an owl, who, full of self-conceit and self-created wisdom, explains, comments, condemns, ordains and order things not understood, yet full of importance still holds forth to stocks and stones around - so sits and scribbles Mike.

The lecturer should give the audience full reason to believe that all his powers have been exerted for their pleasure and instruction.

The important thing is to know how to take all things quietly.

Speculations? I have none. I am resting on certainties.

You can hardly imagine how I am struggling to exert my poetical ideas just now for the discovery of analogies & remote figures respecting the earth, Sun & all sorts of things-for I think it is the true way (corrected by judgement) to work out a discovery.

If the term education may be understood in so large a sense as to include all that belongs to the improvement of the mind, either by the acquisition of the knowledge of others or by increase of it through its own exertions, we learn by them what is the kind of education science offers to man. It teaches us to be neglectful of nothing - not to despise the small beginnings, for they precede of necessity all great things in the knowledge of science, either pure or applied.

No wonder that my remembrance fails me, for I shall complete my 70 years next Sunday (the 22); - and during these 70 years I have had a happy life; which still remains happy because of hope and content.

Since peace is alone in the gift of God; and since it is He who gives it, why should we be afraid? His unspeakable gift in His beloved Son is the ground of no doubtful hope.

I could trust a fact and always cross-question an assertion.

Although we know nothing of what an atom is, yet we cannot resist forming some idea of a small particle, which represents it to the mind ... there is an immensity of facts which justify us in believing that the atoms of matter are in some way endowed or associated with electrical powers, to which they owe their most striking qualities, and amongst them their mutual chemical affinity.

When I came to know Mrs. Marcet personally; how often I cast my thoughts backward, delighting to connect the past and the present; how often, when sending a paper to her as a thank you offering, I thought of my first instructress.

When I consider the multitude of associated forces which are diffused through nature - when I think of that calm balancing of their energies which enables those most powerful in themselves, most destructive to the world's creatures and economy, to dwell associated together and be made subservient to the wants of creation, I rise from the contemplation more than ever impressed with the wisdom, the beneficence, and grandeur, beyond our language to express, of the Great Disposer of us all.

When a mathematician engaged in investigating physical actions and results has arrived at his own conclusions, may they not be expressed in common language as fully, clearly, and definitely as in mathematical formulae? If so, would it not be a great boon to such as well to express them so
translating them out of their hieroglyphics that we might also work upon them by experiment?

It may be a weed instead of a fish that, after all my labour, I at last pull up.

And what good is a baby?

The Bible, and it alone, with nothing added to it nor taken away from it by man, is the sole and sufficient guide for each individual, at all times and in all circumstances

I have long held an opinion, almost amounting to conviction, in common I believe with many other lovers of natural knowledge, that the various forms under which the forces of matter are made manifest have one common origin; or, in other words, are so directly related and mutually dependent, that they are convertible, as it were, one into another, and possess equivalents of power in their action.

Whereas, according to the declaration of that true man of the world Talleyrand, the use of language is to conceal the thoughts; this is to declare in the present instance, when I say I am not able to bear much talking, it means really, and without any mistake, or equivocation, or oblique meaning, or implication, or subterfuge, or omission, that I am not able; being at present rather weak in the head, and able to work no more.

I happen to have discovered a direct relation between magnetism and light, also electricity and light, and the field it opens is so large and I think rich.

The world little knows how many of the thoughts and theories which have passed through the mind of a scientific investigator, have been crushed in silence and secrecy by his own severe criticism and adverse examination!

Nothing is ever too good to be true.

But I must confess I am jealous of the term atom; for though it is very easy to talk of atoms, it is very difficult to form a clear idea of their nature, especially when compounded bodies are under consideration.

It is on record that when a young aspirant asked Faraday the secret of his success as a scientific investigator, he replied, 'The secret is comprised in three words- Work, Finish, Publish.'