Michael Faraday Quotes - Page 2

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

Why, sir, there is every probability that you will soon be able to tax it! Said to William Gladstone, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he asked about the practical worth of electricity.

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.

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.

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.'

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

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!

... and what good is a baby?

A centre of excellence is, by definition, a place where second class people may perform first class work.

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.

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

Physicist is both to my mouth and ears so awkward that I think I shall never use it. The equivalent of three separate sounds of "I" in one word is too much.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Nothing is to wonderful to be true.

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.

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.

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.

Magnetic lines of force convey a far better and purer idea than the phrase magnetic current or magnetic flood: it avoids the assumption of a current or of two currents and also of fluids or a fluid, yet conveys a full and useful pictorial idea to the mind.

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.

When the contrary magnetic poles were on the same side, there was an effect produced on the polarized ray, and thus magnetic force and light were proved to have relation to each other.

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?