Michael Faraday - The Chemical History of a Candle (1861)

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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.

Michael Faraday
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.

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
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