Scientists have always been important to society, from creating life-saving vaccines to finding better ways to save people’s lives or just make them easier. We wouldn’t know how the Earth rotates or what the sun is without scientists, and chemists like Marie Curie discovered vital elements that contributed to our understanding of things such as radioactivity. Another famous chemist, Sir Humphry Davy, was also an inventor who created the Davy lamp in 1815, which was a safer lamp for coal miners to use, as it prevented explosions. According to Britannica, he also discovered several elements, including sodium and potassium. And our quote of the day from Davy is not one of his scientific findings, but instead is a reminder to put effort into your work without expecting anything in return.
The British chemist was born in 1778 in England and died in 1829. According to the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology (WLM), Davy originally wanted to be a surgeon, but instead, “a chance acquaintance led him to a life of research.” In his findings, he studied nitrous oxide, giving us the amazing nickname we know it as today: “laughing gas.” He was also the first to suggest using it for surgery to help alleviate pain.
In addition to the Davy lamp, he also invented the arc lamp, according to the American Physical Society (APS). These were the types of lights that London street lamps used in the early 1900s; they generated light through a “continuous electric spark.” They did need some tweaking from when he invented them in 1809 to when they could be used as street lamps, but still, he created the method. And speaking of “method,” Britannica calls Davy “one of the greatest exponents of the scientific method,” which is essentially how scientists use to test scientific hypotheses.
As the Science History Institute reported, with the fame Davy gained from giving lectures on his findings, discoveries and inventions came criticism and gossip. So even though he did receive many accolades throughout his career and is recognized as a major influential scientist, he didn’t always get those honors. And his feelings on this show up in today’s quote, which states that it’s better to do the work and not receive anything for it than to just receive recognition without any effort on your part.
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Quote of the Day by Sir Humphry Davy
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“It is better to deserve honours and not to have them, than to have them and not deserve them.”
This quote is from Memoirs of the Life of Sir Humphry Davy, which was published in 1836 by his brother, John Davy, according to Quote Investigator. It appears in Chapter Two of the book in a section where John Davy lists off “a selection of [Sir Humphry Davy’s] thoughts” on random things. These blurbs are from his notebooks over a period of time in his adult life.
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Deeper Meaning of Sir Humphry Davy’s Quote—It’s Better To Deserve Praise and Not Get It vs. Receiving It When It’s Not Deserved
Since this is a case of a simple line of wisdom from a rather intelligent inventor and scientist, it’s easy to take the quote in a lot of different ways.
Sticking to the more positive interpretation of this line, Sir Humphry Davy is saying that, even though it feels really great to receive accolades or recognition for your work, it’s better to know that you deserve them than it is to receive them. If you’re just working or doing something for the outward validation and to reap the rewards, you may not be doing it for the right reasons.
It’s better to put your best foot forward and do your best work every day—whether that be as a parent, as an employee, as a student, etc.—for yourself and for the satisfaction of a job well done. It’s always nice to receive recognition—but that’s not the core reason you should do something well. You should care about your work and know that you did your best; you deserve that honor, but if it goes to someone else, you know that you did your best and could have won it on your own merit.
Then, if you include the second half of the quote into the full meaning, he’s also saying that it’s better to do a good job on something—so well that you deserve recognition for it—than it is to be given the reward just because, without putting in the work. Sure, it might feel good temporarily to take shortcuts, but you don’t get as much out of the experience if you don’t deserve something and just get a reward for it anyway. The recognition can fall flat in these instances.
So when you set out to do something, remember Sir Humphry Davy’s wise words: it’s better to put forth effort and care with a task and not receive attention for it than to phone it in and be honored for a lackluster performance.
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More Quotes from Sir 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 are no new worlds to conquer.”
- “Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindnesses and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart, and secure comfort.”
- “You are now in a state in which a fly would be whose microscopic eye was changed to one similar to that of man: and you are wholly unable to associate what you see with your former knowledge.”
- “The more we know, the more we feel our ignorance; the more we feel how much remains unknown”
- “The most important of my discoveries have been suggested to me by failures.”
- “The ideal life is that which has few friends, but many acquaintances.”
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