Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Michael Faraday (British Physicist, Chemist)

Michael Faraday (1791–1867) was an English chemist and physicist (or natural philosopher, in the terminology of the time.) Considered the greatest of all experimental physicists, he contributed immensely to the fields of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism, and electrolysis.

Born in Newington Butts, Surrey, England, into a poor working-class family, Faraday received little formal schooling. He became engrossed in science while toiling as a bookbinder’s apprentice. Faraday wrote to renowned chemist Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution and got a job in 1813. Faraday accompanied Davy on a European tour during which he met many top scientists and gained an unconventional but invaluable scientific education. When Davy retired in 1827, Faraday replaced him as a chemistry professor at the Royal Institution and published his Chemical Manipulation.

Faraday is celebrated today for carrying out pioneering research into the relationship between electricity and magnetism. Expanding on Hans Oersted’s discovery of the current’s magnetic effect, Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction in 1831. He also developed the first generator, produced theories on light and gravitational systems, and created the voltammeter for measuring electrical charges.

Faraday’s most well-known work is the series of ‘Experimental Researches on Electricity’ published over 40 years in Philosophical Transactions, in which he described his many discoveries, including electromagnetic induction (1831,) the laws of electrolysis (1833,) and the rotation of polarized light by magnetism (1845.)

Faraday initiated the tradition of Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for children; they are as essential a part of the British Christmas tradition as the queen’s speech.

Faraday remained a private man and refused titles and public offices. He is distinctly honored with two units named after him—a unit of capacitance is the farad, and a unit of charge is the faraday.

Cornell historian of science L. Pearce Williams wrote the biography Michael Faraday (1987.)

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Michael Faraday

But still try, for who knows what is possible…
Michael Faraday

The important thing is to know how to take all things quietly.
Michael Faraday

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

There’s nothing quite as frightening as someone who knows they are right.
Michael Faraday

Learn that which is already known to others, and then by the light and methods which belong to science … learn for ourselves and for others; so making a fruitful return to man in the future for that which we have obtained from the men of the past.
Michael Faraday

I will simply express my strong belief, that that point of self-education which consists in teaching the mind to resist its desires and inclinations, until they are proved to be right, is the most important of all, not only in things of natural philosophy, but in every department of daily life.
Michael Faraday

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

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.
Michael Faraday

Shall we educate ourselves in what is known, and then casting away all we have acquired, turn to ignorance for aid to guide us among the unknown?
Michael Faraday

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.
Michael Faraday

It is right that we should stand by and act on our principles; but not right to hold them in obstinate blindness, or retain them when proved to be erroneous.
Michael Faraday

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.
Michael Faraday

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

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