Louis Pasteur Quotes

To use Newton's words, our efforts up till this moment have but turned over a pebble or shell here and there on the beach, with only a forlorn hope that under one of them was the gem we were seeking. Now we have the sieve, the minds, the hands, the time, and, particularly, the dedication to find those gems-no matter in which favorite hiding place the children of distant worlds have placed them.

I love researching. That's one of my favorite parts about school.

The search for knowledge is a long and difficult task.

I'm not just a scientist.

Just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts.

It is like a voyage of discovery into unknown lands, seeking not for new territory but for new knowledge. It should appeal to those with a good sense of adventure.

To me there has never been a higher source of earthly honor or distinction than that connected with advances in science.

We live in an age of universal investigation, and of exploration of the sources of all movements.

The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds.

Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death.

Many discoveries must have been stillborn or smothered at birth. We know only those which survived.

I think the scientific goals and the technical challenges were the two things that equally motivated me.

I see no difference between scientific exploration and human exploration.

Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. It is a seeking that he who wishes may know the cosmic secrets of the world and they that dwell therein.

Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy; research, the progress; ignorance, the end. There is, by heavens, a strong and generous kind of ignorance that yields nothing, for honour and courage, to knowledge: an ignorance to conceive which needs no less knowledge than to conceive knowledge.

To be on a quest is nothing more or less than to become an asker of questions.

For nearly a quarter of a century, I have been engaged in the investigation of the fundamentals of life, the material universe and human behavior. Such an adventure leads one down many highways, through many byroads, into many back alleys of uncertainty, through many strata of life...

The whole strenuous intellectual work of an industrious research worker would appear, after all, in vain and hopeless, if he were not occasionally through some striking facts to find that he had, at the end of all his criss-cross journeys, at last accomplished at least one step which was conclusively nearer the truth.

[Science is] a great game. It is inspiring and refreshing. The playing field is the universe itself.

I shall be obliged to wander to the right and to the left, that I may investigate and discover the truth.

Ignorance is the mother of research.

When curiosity turns to serious matters, it's called research.

If we always thought like that, why would we study physics, why would we think of cosmology, why would we do any kind of research? Because we know already so much that there is no one person who can contain all that information.

I think a part of evolution is the desire to know yourself, and know the world you live in, and discover everything you can about the world you live in. That world can be the microcosm of your own emotions, or a society, or the cosmos. There's this constant desire for knowledge.

Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists.