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 onu… - Michael Faraday

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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 duly to prove him right or wrong. His duty is to demonstrate the truth of that which he asserts, or to cease from asserting. The men he calls upon to consider and judge have enough to do with themselves, in the examination, correction, or verification of their own views. 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; that in the most successful instances not a tenth of the suggestions, the hopes, the wishes, the preliminary conclusions have been realized.

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About Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday (22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English chemist and physicist (or natural philosopher, in the terminology of the time) who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Faraday
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Additional quotes by Michael Faraday

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 have not been at work except in turning the tables upon table turners – nor should I have done that but that so many enquiries poured in upon me that I thought it better to stop the inpouring flood by letting all know at once what my views and thoughts were. 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 (and apart from that spirit which God has placed in each) and accepting for a moment that average as a standard, I should far prefer the obedience affections and instinct of a dog before it. Do not whisper this however to others. There is one above who worketh in all things and who governs even in the midst of that misrule to which the tendencies and powers of man are so easily perverted.

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