Michael Faraday quotes

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Michael Faraday. (1791 - 1867). English self-taught scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry.

Wonderful Dream

“All this is a dream. Still, examine it by a few experiments. Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature; and in such things as these, experiment is the best test of such consistency.”
  • Source: Laboratory/Journal/Writer=Michael Faraday; Entry/Id=#10,040; Entry/Date=1849-03-19; Book/Title=“The Life and Letters of Faraday”; Publication/Date=1870; Volume=II; Page=248; Editor=Henry Bence Jones.
  • Notes: This has sometimes been quoted partially as “Nothing is too wonderful to be true”, and can be seen engraved above the doorway of the south entrance to the Humanities Building at UCLA in Los Angeles, California.
Keywords: Reality_quotes Dreaming_quotes Experiment_quotes Examination_quotes Wonder_quotes Truth_quotes Law_quotes Consistency_quotes Nature_quotes

Assertion Duties

“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.”
  • Source: Lecturer=Michael Faraday; Lecture/Title=“Observations on Mental Education: A Lecture Delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain Before H.R.H. Prince Albert”; Date=1854-05-06; Book/Title=“Lectures on Education”; Publication/Date=1855; Book/Title=“Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics”; Publication/Date=1859); Page=486.
Keywords: Assertion_quotes Conclusion_quotes Investigation_quotes Rights_quotes Duty_quotes Proof_quotes Truth_quotes Examination_quotes Correction_quotes Verification_quotes Opinion_quotes World_quotes Thinking_quotes Theory_quotes Mind_quotes Science_quotes Self-Examination_quotes Criticism_quotes Success_quotes Suggestion_quotes Hope_quotes Wish_quotes Man_quotes Case_quotes Competent_quotes Throw_quotes Onus_quotes Right_quotes Wrong_quotes Demonstrate_quotes Men_quotes Consider_quotes Judge_quotes View_quotes Crush_quotes Silent_quotes Secret_quotes Preliminary_quotes Realize_quotes

Laws of Nature

“The laws of nature, as we understand them, are the foundation of our knowledge in natural things. So much as we know of them has been developed by the successive energies of the highest intellects, exerted through many ages. After a most rigid and scrutinizing examination upon principle and trial, a definite expression has been given to them; they have become, as it were, our belief or trust. From day to day we still examine and test our expressions of them. We have no interest in their retention if erroneous. On the contrary, the greatest discovery a man could make would be to prove that one of these accepted laws was erroneous, and his greatest honour would be the discovery.”
  • Source: Book/Author=Michael Faraday; Title=“Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics”; Publication/Date=1859; Page=469.
Keywords: Law_quotes Nature_quotes Understanding_quotes Foundation_quotes Knowledge_quotes Energy_quotes Intellectualism_quotes Examination_quotes Principle_quotes Trial_quotes Expression_quotes Belief_quotes Trust_quotes Testing_quotes Interest_quotes Retention_quotes Error_quotes Discovery_quotes Proof_quotes Falsification_quotes Honor_quotes Rigid_quotes Examine_quotes Man_quotes

Self-Correction

“Among those points of self-education which take up the form of mental discipline, there is one of great importance, and, moreover, difficult to deal with, because it involves an internal conflict, and equally touches our vanity and our ease. It consists in the tendency to deceive ourselves regarding all we wish for, and the necessity of resistance to these desires. It is impossible for any one who has not been constrained, by the course of his occupation and thoughts, to a habit of continual self-correction, to be aware of the amount of error in relation to judgment arising from this tendency. The force of the temptation which urges us to seek for such evidence and appearances as are in favour of our desires, and to disregard those which oppose them, is wonderfully great. In this respect we are all, more or less, active promoters of error. 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.”
  • Source: Michael Faraday. Royal Institution Lecture On Mental Education (6 May 1854), as reprinted in Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics, by Michael Faraday, 1859, pp 474-475.
Keywords: Self-Education_quotes Autodidact_quotes Mental_quotes Discipline_quotes Importance_quotes Conflict_quotes Vanity_quotes Tendency_quotes Self-Deception_quotes Wish_quotes Resistance_quotes Desire_quotes Impossibility_quotes Constraint_quotes Occupation_quotes Thinking_quotes Habit_quotes Self-Correction_quotes Error_quotes Judgment_quotes Temptation_quotes Urge_quotes Evidence_quotes Disregard_quotes Opposition_quotes Wonder_quotes Promotion_quotes Practice_quotes Self-Abnegation_quotes Tribalism_quotes Common_Sense_quotes

Poem of Facts

“I am no poet, but if you think for yourselves, as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your minds.”
  • Source: Michael Faraday. Lecture notes of 1858, quoted in The Life and Letters of Faraday (1870) by Bence Jones, Vol. 2, p. 403
Keywords: Poetry_quotes Thinking_quotes Fact_quotes Mind_quotes

Work Finish Publish

“The secret is comprised in three words — Work, finish, publish.”
  • Source: Michael Faraday. His well-known advice to the young William Crookes, who had asked him the secret of his success as a scientific investigator, as quoted in Michael Faraday (1874) by John Hall Gladstone, p. 123.
Keywords: Secret_quotes Work_quotes Finishing_quotes Publishing_quotes
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