“I could trust a fact and always cross-question an assertion.”

When the contrary magnetic poles were on the same side, there was an effect produced on the polarized ray, and thus magnetic force and light were proved to have relation to each other.

Work, finish, publish.

I propose to distinguish these bodies by calling those anions which go to the anode of the decomposing body; and those passing to the cathode, cations; and when I have occasion to speak of these together, I shall call them ions.

You 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.

The book of nature which we have to read is written by the finger of God.

Water is to me, I confess, a phenomenon which continually awakens new feelings of wonder as often as I view it.

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.

I can at any moment convert my time into money, but I do not require more of the latter than is sufficient for necessary purposes.

The philosopher should be a man willing to listen to every suggestion,but determined to judge for himself.He should not be a respector of persons,but of things.Truth should be his primary object.

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

I happen to have discovered a direct relation between magnetism and light, also electricity and light, and the field it opens is so large and I think rich.

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!

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.

Physicist is both to my mouth and ears so awkward that I think I shall never use it. The equivalent of three separate sounds of “I” in one word is too much.

Since peace is alone the gift of God, and as it is He who gives it, why should we be afraid? His unspeakable gift in His beloved Son is the ground of no doubtful hope.

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.

Magnetic lines of force convey a far better and purer idea than the phrase magnetic current or magnetic flood: it avoids the assumption of a current or of two currents and also of fluids or a fluid, yet conveys a full and useful pictorial idea to the mind.

No paradox, no progress.

Speculations? I have none. I am resting on certainties.

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

The lasting pleasures of contact with the natural world are not reserved for scientists but are available to anyone who will place himself under the influence of earth, sea and sky and their amazing life.

There is one quality that characterizes all of us who deal with the sciences of the earth and its life – we are never bored.

Opposites are not contradictory but complementary.

The aim of science is to discover and illuminate truth. And that, I take it, is the aim of literature, whether biography or history or fiction. It seems to me, then, that there can be no separate literature of science.