Michael Faraday Quotes

78 Sourced Quotes

I propose to distinguish these bodies by calling those anions which go to the anode of the decomposing body; and those passing to the cathode, cations; and when I have occasion to speak of these together, I shall call them ions.

Michael Faraday
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.

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

Michael Faraday
I shall here claim, as I always have done on these occasions, the right of addressing myself to the younger members of the audience, - and for this purpose, therefore, unfitted as it may seem for an elderly infirm man to do so, I will return to second childhood and become, as it were, young again amongst the young.

Michael Faraday
There is no more open door by which you can enter into the study of natural philosophy than by considering the physical phenomena of a candle.

Michael Faraday
To discover a new element is a very fine thing, but if you could decompose an element and tell us what it is made of - that would be a discovery indeed worth making.

Michael Faraday
The more we can enlarge the number of anomalous facts and consequences the better it will be for the subject; for they can only remain anomalies to us while we continue in error.

Michael Faraday
I do not think that the study of natural science is so glorious a school for the mind that, with the laws impressed on all created things by the Creator, and the wonderful unity and stability of matter and the forces of matter, there cannot be a better school for the education of the mind.

Michael Faraday
What a weak, credulous, incredulous, unbelieving, superstitious, bold, frightened, what a ridiculous world ours is, as far as concerns the mind of man. How full of inconsistencies, contradictions and absurdities it is. I declare that taking the average of many minds that have recently come before me... I should prefer the obedience, affections and instinct of a dog before it.

Michael Faraday
So much is unknown to the wisest man, that he may often be without an answer: as frequently he is so, because the subject is in the region of hypothesis, and not of facts.

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

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

Michael Faraday
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.

Michael Faraday
You will be astonished when I tell you what this curious play of carbon amounts to. A candle will burn some four, five, six, or seven hours. What, then, must be the daily amount of carbon going up into the air in the way of carbonic acid!... Then what becomes of it? Wonderful is it to find that the change produced by respiration... is the very life and support of plants and vegetables that grow upon the surface of the earth.

Michael Faraday
Hypotheses, treated as mere poetic fancies in one age, scouted as scientific absurdities in the next — preparatory only to their being altogether forgotten — have often, when least expected, received confirmation from indirect channels, and, at length, become finally adopted as tenets, deducible from the sober exercise of induction.

Michael Faraday
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.

Michael Faraday
If you would cause your view … to be acknowledged by scientific men; you would do a great service to science. If you would even get them to say yes or no to your conclusions it would help to clear the future progress. I believe some hesitate because they do not like their thoughts disturbed.

Michael Faraday
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 — and I therefore hope and am fully persuaded that you are working. Nature is our kindest friend and best critic in experimental science if we only allow her intimations to fall unbiased on our minds. Nothing is so good as an experiment which, whilst it sets an error right, gives us (as a reward for our humility in being reproved) an absolute advancement in knowledge.

Michael Faraday
I think chemistry is being frittered away by the hairsplitting of the organic chemists; we have new compounds discovered, which scarcely differ from the known ones and when discovered are valueless-very illustrations perhaps of their refinements in analysis, but very little aiding the progress of true science.

Michael Faraday
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.

Michael Faraday
A man who makes assertions, or draws conclusions, regarding any given case, ought to be competent to investigate it. He has no right to throw the onus on others, declaring it their duty to prove him right or wrong. His duty is to demonstrate the truth of that which he asserts, or to cease from asserting.

Michael Faraday
Ceremony is useless in many cases, and sometimes impertinent; now between you and me it may not be the last, yet I conceive it is the first: therefore I have banished it at this time.

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
If in such strivings, we... see but imperfectly, still we should endeavor to see, for even an obscure and distorted vision is better than none.

Michael Faraday
Speculations? I have none. I am resting on certainties. I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

Michael Faraday