Michael Faraday Quotes

But still try for who knows what is possible!

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.

I shall be with Christ, and that is enough.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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. The human mind is placed above, and not beneath it, and it is in such a point of view that the mental education afforded by science is rendered super-eminent in dignity, in practical application and utility; for by enabling the mind to apply the natural power through law, it conveys the gifts of God to man.

I was at first almost frightened when I saw such mathematical force made to bear upon the subject, and then wondered to see that the subject stood it so well.

"I was at first almost frightened when I saw such mathematical force made to bear upon the subject, and then wondered to see that the subject stood it so well.
[Letter to James Clerk Maxwell, 25 March 1857, commenting on Maxwell's paper titled "On Faraday's Lines of Force"]"

An intimate friend of Faraday once described to me how, when Faraday was endeavouring to explain to Gladstone and several others an important new discovery in science Gladstone's only commentary was “but, after all, what use is it?” “Why, sir,” replied Faraday, “there is every probability that you will soon be able to tax it!”

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.