Quotes by Humphry Davy

“Nothing is so dangerous to the progress of the human mind than to assume that our views of science are ultimate, that there are no mysteries in nature, that our triumphs are complete and that there...”

“The most important of my discoveries have been suggested to me by my failures.”

“In the present state of our knowledge, it would be useless to attempt to speculate on the remote cause of the electrical energy... its relation to chemical affinity is, however, sufficiently eviden...”

“Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindness, and small obligations given habitually, are what preserve the heart and secure comfort.”

“Language is not only the vehicle of thought, it is a great and efficient instrument in thinking.”

“Natural science is founded on minute critical views of the general order of events taking place upon our globe, corrected, enlarged, or exalted by experiments, in which the agents concerned are pla...”

“The moment after, I began to respire 20 quarts of unmingled nitrous oxide. A thrilling, extending from the chest to the extremities, was almost immediately produced. I felt a sense of tangible exte...”

“A small piece of pure potash... was placed upon an insulated disk of platina, connected with the negative side of the battery... and a platina wire communicating with the positive side, was brought...”

“You write with great eloquence and truth on the effects of mountain scenery on the mind. Whatever exalts the imagination purifies the affections; but even our noblest and best thoughts have their a...”

“Every new discovery may be considered as a new species of manufacture, awakening moral industry and sagacity, and employing, as it were, new capital of mind.”

“Fortunately science, like that nature to which it belongs, is neither limited by time nor by space. It belongs to the world, and is of no country and of no age. The more we know, the more we feel o...”

“That the forms of natural bodies may depend upon different arrangements of the same particles of matter has been a favourite hypothesis advanced in the earliest era of physical research, and often ...”

“I envy no quality of the mind or intellect in others; not genius, power, wit, nor fancy; but, if I could choose what would be most delightful, and, I believe, most useful to me, I should prefer a f...”

“Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete, and that there are...”

“Davy held that if the battery is strong enough any compound may be decomposed, and that chemical affinity is merely a form of electric attraction. He vigorously put his theory into practice...”

“Berthollet's conclusion that chlorine is oxymuriatic acid was universally accepted until Gay-Lussac and Thénard in 1809 endeavoured to decompose the gas and failed. They concluded that it contained...”

“Sir Humphry DavyAbominated gravy.He lived in the odiumOf having discovered Sodium.”

“I need only remind you of Davy's great researches: nitrous oxide; electric conduction and decomposition—resulting, on the one hand, in the separation of potassium and sodium, the decomposition of t...”

“In September, 1807, our illustrious chemist applied his great principle to the analyses of potash, the vegetable alkali. Some had supposed it to consist of lime and hydrogen; others conjectured tha...”

“The delight which Mr Davy experienced when he first saw the minute globules of potassium (the new metal) burst through the crust of potash, and take fire as they entered the atmosphere, was witness...”