I deeply admire Marie Curie both for her personality and contribution to Science and Society.
Sort her quotes based on my preferences.
Life Attitude:
1. Life is not easy for any of us, but what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.
2. Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
3. You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for our own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.
4. I am one of those who think like Nobel, that humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries.
5. Humanity needs practical men, who get the most out of their work, and, without forgetting the general good, safeguard their own interests. But humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit. Without doubt, these dreamers do not deserve wealth, because they do not desire it. Even so, a well-organized society should assure to such workers the efficient means of accomplishing their task, in a life freed from material care and freely consecrated to research.
6. One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.
7. Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.
8. I have frequently been questioned, especially by women, of how I could reconcile family life with a scientific career. Well, it has not been easy.
9. The older one gets, the more one feels that the present moment must be enjoyed, comparable to a state of grace.
Science:
1. All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.
2. I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not a mere technician: he is also a child confronting natural phenomena that impress him as though they were fairy tales. We should not allow it to be believed that all scientific progress can be reduced to mechanisms, machines, gearings, even though such machinery has its own beauty.
3. We must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals. The work was one of pure science. And this is a proof that scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science, and then there is always the chance that a scientific discovery may become like the radium a benefit for humanity.
4. I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy.
5. Sometimes my courage fails me and I think I ought to stop working, live in the country and devote myself to gardening. But I am held by a thousand bonds, and I don't know when I shall be able to arrange things otherwise. Nor do I know whether, even by writing scientific books, I could live without the laboratory.
6. In science, we must be interested in things, not in persons.
7. It was like a new world opened to me, the world of science, which I was at last permitted to know in all liberty.
8. After all, science is essentially international, and it is only through lack of the historical sense that national qualities have been attributed to it.
9. There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.
10. It is my earnest desire that some of you should carry on this scientific work and keep for your ambition the determination to make a permanent contribution to science.
11. I believe international work is a heavy task, but that it is nevertheless indispensable to go through an apprenticeship in it, at the cost of many efforts and also of a real spirit of sacrifice: however imperfect it may be, the work of Geneva has a grandeur that deserves our support.
Created by Chan Zhou on Nov 28, 2009.