Louis Pasteur Quotes

The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. Science brings men nearer to God.

Little science takes you away from God but more of it takes you to Him.

Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.

Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world.

Chance favors the prepared mind.

Messieurs, c'est les microbes qui auront le dernier mot." (Gentlemen, it is the microbes who will have the last word.)

One does not ask of one who suffers: What is your country and what is your religion? One merely says: You suffer, that is enough for me.

Question your priorities often, make sure God always comes first.

Posterity will one day laugh at the sublime foolishness of the modern materialistic philosophy. The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. I pray while I am engaged at my work in the laboratory.

A bottle of wine contains more philosophy than all the books in the world.

To know how to wonder and question is the first step of the mind toward discovery.

Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world. Science is the highest personification of the nation because that nation will remain the first which carries the furthest the works of thought and intelligence.

When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments; tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become.

The greatest derangement of the mind is to believe in something because one wishes it to be so.

It is not the germs we need worry about. It is our inner terrain.

Did you ever observe to whom the accidents happen? Chance favors only the prepared mind.

There are no such things as applied sciences, only applications of science.

Science and Peace will triumph over Ignorance and War...

Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages.

Life comes only from life.

When you believe you have found an important scientific fact, and are feverishly curious to publish it, constrain yourself for days, weeks, years sometimes, fight yourself, try and ruin your own experiments, and only proclaim your discovery after having exhausted all contrary hypotheses. But when, after so many efforts you have at last arrived at a certainty, your joy is one of the greatest which can be felt by a human soul.

These three things-work, will, success-fill human existences. Will opens the door to success, both brilliant and happy. Work passes these doors, and at the end of the journey success comes in to crown one's efforts.

If it is a terrifying thought that life is at the mercy of the multiplication of these minute bodies [microbes], it is a consoling hope that Science will not always remain powerless before such enemies.

Do not let yourself be tainted with a barren skepticism.

Science brings men nearer to God.

Whether our efforts are, or not, favored by life, let us be able to say, when we come near to the great goal, I have done what I could.

Do not put forward anything that you cannot prove by experimentation.

My strength lies solely in my tenacity.

The universe is asymmetric and I am persuaded that life, as it is known to us, is a direct result of the asymmetry of the universe or of its indirect consequences. The universe is asymmetric.

Blessed is he who carries within himself a God, an ideal, and obeys it.

The Greeks bequeathed to us one of the most beautiful words in our language--the word 'enthusiasm'--en theos--a god within. The grandeur of human actions is measured by the inspiration from which they spring. Happy is he who bears a god within, and who obeys it.

The role of the infinitely small in nature is infinitely great.

Blessed is he who carries within himself a God, an ideal, and who obeys it: ideal of art, ideal of science, ideal of the gospel virtues, therein lie the springs of great thoughts and great actions; they all reflect light from the Infinite.

It is surmounting difficulties that makes heroes.

Change only favours minds that are diligently looking and preparing for discovery.

The universe is an asymmetrical entity. I am inclined to believe that life as it is manifested to us must be a function of the asymmetry of the universe or of the consequence of this fact. The universe is asymmetrical; for if one placed the entire set of bodies that compose the solar system, each moving in its own way, before a mirror, the image shown would not be superimposable on the reality.

Live in the serene peace of laboratories and libraries

Oh my goodness the mystery that has prompted my objective. My quality lies exclusively in my tirelessness.

La fortuna juega a favor de una mente preparada

Intuition is given only to him who has undergone long preparation to receive it.

There does not exist a category of science to which one can give the name applied science. There are sciences and the applications of science, bound together as the fruit of the tree which bears it.

To demonstrate experimentally that a microscopic organism actually is the cause of a disease and the agent of contagion, I know no other way, in the present state of Science, than to subject the microbe (the new and happy term introduced by M. Sédillot) to the method of cultivation out of the body.

These microscopic organisms form an entire world composed of species, families and varieties whose history, which has barely begun to be written, is already fertile in prospects and findings of the highest importance. The names of these organisms are very numerous and will have to be defined and in part discarded. The word microbe which has the advantage of being shorter and carrying a more general meaning, and of having been approved by my illustrious friend, M. Littré, the most competent linguist in France, is one we will adopt.

God grant that by my persevering labours I may bring a little stone to the frail and ill-assured edifice of our knowledge of those deep mysteries of Life and Death where all our intellects have so lamentably failed.

My present and most fixed opinion regarding the nature of alcoholic fermentation is this: The chemical act of fermentation is essentially a phenomenon correlative with a vital act, beginning and ending with the latter. I believe that there is never any alcoholic fermentation without their being simultaneously the organization, development, multiplication of the globules, or the pursued, continued life of globules which are already formed.

The controls of life are structured as forms and nuclear arrangements, in a relation with the motions of the universe.

How do you know that the incessant progress of science will not compel scientists to consider that life has existed during eternity, and not matter?

Posterity will one day laugh at the foolishness of modern materialistic philosophers.

Imagination should give wings to our thoughts but we always need decisive experimental proof, and when the moment comes to draw conclusions and to interpret the gathered observations, imagination must be checked and documented by the factual results of the experiment.

In the fields of observation chance favors only those minds which are prepared.