“I cannot conceive curved lines of force without the conditions of a physical existence in that intermediate space.”

All are sure in their days except the most wise. He is the wisest philosopher who holds his theory with some doubt.

Why will people go astray when they have this blessed Book to guide them?

Who would not have been laughed at if he had said in 1800 that metals could be extracted from their ores by electricity or that portraits could be drawn by chemistry.

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.

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

Lectures which really teach will never be popular; lectures which are popular will never really teach.

I have far more confidence in the one man who works mentally and bodily at a matter than in the six who merely talk about it.

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.

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.