List of Michael Faraday Quotes

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.

I Have Taken Your Advice And The Names Used Are Anode Cathode Anions Cations And Ions The Last I Shall Have But Little Occasion For. I Had Some Hot Objections Made To Them Here And Found Myself Very Much In The Condition Of The Man With His Son And Ass Who Tried To Please Every Body.

When I Came To Know Mrs. Marcet Personally; How Often I Cast My Thoughts Backward, Delighting To Connect The Past And The Present; How Often, When Sending A Paper To Her As A Thank You Offering, I Thought Of My First Instructress.

Ou Can Hardly Imagine How I Am Struggling To Exert My Poetical Ideas Just Now For The Discovery Of Analogies And Remote Figures Respecting The Earth, Sun, And All Sorts Of Things — For I Think That Is The True Way (corrected By Judgment) To Work Out A Discovery.

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.

Tyndall, ... I Must Remain Plain Michael Faraday To The Last; And Let Me Now Tell You, That If Accepted The Honour Which The Royal Society Desires To Confer Upon Me, I Would Not Answer For The Integrity Of My Intellect For A Single Year.

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.

When A Mathematician Engaged In Investigating Physical Actions And Results Has Arrived At His Own Conclusions, May They Not Be Expressed In Common Language As Fully, Clearly, And Definitely As In Mathematical Formulae? If So, Would It Not Be A Great Boon To Such As Well To Express Them So -- Translating Them Out Of Their Hieroglyphics That We Might Also Work Upon Them By Experiment?

All Your Names I And My Friend Approve Of Or Nearly All As To Sense & Expression, But I Am Frightened By Their Length & Sound When Compounded. As You Will See I Have Taken Deoxide And Skaiode Because They Agree Best With My Natural Standard East And West. I Like Anode & Cathode Better As To Sound, But All To Whom I Have Shewn Them Have Supposed At First That By Anode I Meant No Way.

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.

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.

Your Remarks Upon Chemical Notation With The Variety Of Systems Which Have Arisen, &c., &c., Had Almost Stirred Me Up To Regret Publicly That Such Hindrances To The Progress Of Science Should Exist. I Cannot Help Thinking It A Most Unfortunate Thing That Men Who As Experimentalists & Philosophers Are The Most Fitted To Advance The General Cause Of Science & Knowledge Should By Promulgation Of Their Own Theoretical Views Under The Form Of Nomenclature, Notation, Or Scale, Actually Retard Its Progress.