“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.”

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

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.

I am no poet, but if you think for yourselves, as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your minds.

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

With respect to Committees as you would perceive I am very jealous of their formation. I mean working committees. I think business is always better done by few than by many.

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.

It is now well established that the Constitution protects the right to receive information and ideas.This right to receive information and ideas, regardless of their social worth, is fundamental to our free society.

When I was a kid, we said that we were precluded from going to certain neighborhoods because of the color of our skin Now the neighborhoods are the neighborhoods of ideas, youre not supposed to be there because of the color of your skin.

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

I thought I was benefiting the Indians as well as the government, by taking them all over the United States, and giving them a correct idea of the customs, life, etc., of the pale faces, so that when they returned to their people they could make known all they had seen.

The idea of losing the three at Hayward Field and the idea of losing my specialty to someone who wasn’t running his specialty. Mostly, the idea of losing in front of my people. They haven’t forgotten about me.

I think I’m an old soul, That believes in the idea of true love and royalty, loves old songs, looks for real in the world full of pretence.

I find I can get so much done between midnight and 4 a.m. Everything is quiet, no one is disturbing me, and if I go to bed then, I just lie awake thinking of ideas. They are very creative hours for me. One night a week I crash out, though.

I never check my bank account. I know that sounds crazy. But I don’t know how much is in there. I never know how much is in there. I have an idea – I have a bottom line – but I never look because I always make believe there’s never anything in there.