Water is to me, I confess, a phenomenon which continually awakens new feelings of wonder as often as I view it.
Interpretation
Water inspires a sense of wonder and curiosity every time it is observed.
In this quote, Michael Faraday expresses his deep appreciation for water, highlighting how its beauty and complexity evoke a renewed sense of awe within him each time he encounters it. This perspective reflects the notion that natural phenomena, like water, can continually inspire us and provoke thought, emphasizing a connection between observation and emotional response.
In practice
During a nature documentary screening, this quote could emphasize the beauty of aquatic ecosystems.
I think chemistry is being frittered away by the hairsplitting of the organic chemists; we have new compounds discovered, which scarcely differ from the known ones and when discovered are valueless-very illustrations perhaps of their refinements in analysis, but very little aiding the progress of true science.
I am no poet, but if you think for yourselves, as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your minds.
It is on record that when a young aspirant asked Faraday the secret of his success as a scientific investigator, he replied, 'The secret is comprised in three words- Work, Finish, Publish.'
When I consider the multitude of associated forces which are diffused through nature - when I think of that calm balancing of their energies which enables those most powerful in themselves, most destructive to the world's creatures and economy, to dwell associated together and be made subservient to the wants of creation, I rise from the contemplation more than ever impressed with the wisdom, the beneficence, and grandeur, beyond our language to express, of the Great Disposer of us all.
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.
Chemistry is necessarily an experimental science: its conclusions are drawn from data, and its principles supported by evidence from facts.
We are now heading down a centuries-long path toward increasing the productivity of our natural capital - the resource systems upon which we depend to live - instead of our human capital.
Each stone, each bend cries welcome to him. He identifies with the mountains and the streams, he sees something of his own soul in the plants and the animals and the birds of the field.
This song of the waters is audible to every ear, but there is other music in these hills, by no means audible to all. On a still night, when the campfire is low and the Pleiades have climbed over rimrocks, sit quietly and listen, and think hard of everything you have seen and tried to understand. Then you may hear it - a vast pulsing harmony - its score inscribed on a thousand hills, its notes the lives and deaths of plants and animals, its rhythms spanning the seconds and the centuries.
...We're allotted a little space on earth and that we survive in that wilderness that can take back what it has given, as easily as blowing its breath on us or sending the sea to tell us we are not so big. When we forget how close the wilderness is in the night, my grandpa said, someday it will come in and get us, for we will have forgotten how terrible and real it can be.
Nature hides her secrets because of her essential loftiness, but not by means of ruse.
I stood beside a hill_x000D_ _x000D_ Smooth with new-laid snow,_x000D_ _x000D_ A single star looked out_x000D_ _x000D_ From the cold evening glow._x000D_ _x000D_ There was not other creature_x000D_ _x000D_ That saw what I could see,_x000D_ _x000D_ I stood and watched the evening star_x000D_ _x000D_ As long as it watched me.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.