“A man who is certain he is right is almost sure to be wrong.”

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

I am busy just now again on Electro-Magnetism and think I have got hold of a good thing but can’t say; it may be a weed instead of a fish that after all my labour I may at last pull up.

Why, sir, there is every probability that you will soon be able to tax it! Said to William Gladstone, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he asked about the practical worth of electricity.

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.

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

A centre of excellence is, by definition, a place where second class people may perform first class work.

But still try, for who knows what is possible?

There is no more open door by which you can enter into the study of natural philosophy than by considering the physical phenomena of a candle.

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?

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

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.

As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist, he is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational arts, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that, he’s a great military man, I want you to know that.

Very few men can remain poised under an artillery concentration.

Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time.

I admire men of character and I judge character not by how men deal with their superiors, but mostly how they deal with their subordinates. And that, to me, is where you find out what the character of a man is.

The men trust in you, have faith in you, and they obey, no questions asked. That’s character in a nutshell.

Cursed is the man who dies, but the evil done by him survives.

A Man who is Shy and Modest, is An Amazing Character, but a Women who is Shy and Modest is Beyond Amazing.

What luck for rulers that men do not think.