Michael Faraday

“Michael Faraday was…one of the most important and most consequential scientists of the nineteenth century. He acquired a reputation for near saintliness, and was renowned for being generous, charitable and possessed of considerable integrity. He refused to advise the government on chemical weapons during the Crimean War, twice refused the presidency of the Royal Society, declined the invitation to be buried in Westminster Abbey and turned down knighthood, all because such honors violated his evangelical aversion to worldly titles.” – Nicholas Spencer