Michael Faraday Quotes

We need wisdom the most when we believe in it the least.

The believer is happy; the doubter is wise.

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.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.

I think the philosophy that we don't know as much as we think we know resonates throughout my work.

I've reached the age of self-knowledge, so I don't know anything. People who claim that they know something are responsible for most of the fuss in the world.

I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure - that is all that agnosticism means.

If all you have is faith, then you never actually know anything.

I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure - that is all that agnosticism means.

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

There is only one thing about which I am certain, and that is that there is very little about which one can be certain.

Who knows most, doubts most.

Doubt is the offspring of knowledge: the savage never doubts at all.

Doubt is the origin of wisdom.

We cannot infer that because sciences of things divine and human are full of controversies and quarrels, therefore their whole subject-matter is uncertain ; for there have been many persons so enamoured of contradiction, as to turn into ridicule geometrical axioms.

We'd all like to be certain of what we know, but I think the most important question is to ask yourself do you really know what you know?

I say this all the time: All I know is I know nothing at all.

But is all this true?" said Brutha. Didactylos shrugged. "Could be. Could be. We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork." "You mean you don't KNOW it's true?" said Brutha. "I THINK it might be," said Didactylos. "I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about.

The wise know too well their weakness to assume infallibility; and he who knows most knows best how little he knows.

We cannot begin with complete doubt.

Only the fools are certain and assured.

Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?

On the one hand, philosophy is to keep us thinking about things that we may come to know, and on the other hand to keep us modestly aware of how much that seems like knowledge isn't knowledge