Michael Faraday Quotes

The more you think you know, the more closed-minded you'll be.

The people with the most ridiculous ideas are always the people who are most certain of them

I wish I was as cocksure of anything as Tom Macaulay is of everything.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

The habit of an opinion often leads to the complete conviction of its truth, it hides the weaker parts of it, and makes us incapable of accepting the proofs against it.

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. Even those of the intelligent who believe that they have a nostrum are too individualistic to combine with other intelligent men from whom they differ on minor points.

My understanding of religion and science is that they're both arrogant schools of thought, and whether they acknowledge it or not they continually broadcast the idea that they have the world figured out. And what they don't know, they have a theory for which is probably correct. It feels like that shrinks the world, rather than expands it.

None are so fallible as those who are sure they're right.

I am very cautious of people who are absolutely right, especially when they are vehemently so.

The only thing worse than human ignorance is human pride in that ignorance.

Those who lack all idea that it is possible to be wrong can learn nothing except know-how.

The greatest obstacle to discovering the truth is being convinced that you already know it.

Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one's own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality.

It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.

[Those] who have an excessive faith in their theories or in their ideas are not only poorly disposed to make discoveries, but they also make very poor observations.

Men who believe too firmly in their theories, do not believe enough in the theories of others. So ... these despisers of their fellows ... make experiments only to destroy a theory, instead of to seek the truth.

The kind of man who always thinks that he is right, that his opinions, his pronouncements, are the final word, when once exposed shows nothing there. But a wise man has much to learn without a loss of dignity.

Nobody's easier to fool, than the person who is convinced that he is right.

The worst thing is not being wrong, but being sure one is not wrong.

No one is so wrong as the man who knows all the answers.

Many men would have arrived at wisdom had they not believed themselves to have arrived there already.

Fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves.

But what if...what if you sincerely believed something was true, but you were dead wrong? What if you were so stubbornly sure that you were right, that you wouldn’t even consider the truth? Would the truth be silenced, or would it try to break through?

Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth, but already to possess it.