“One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.”
Marie Curie
Madame Curie: A Biography (Secondary source)
Eve Curie crafted an intimate yet scientifically rigorous portrait of her mother’s extraordinary journey from Polish exile to Nobel laureate. This luminous biography captures both Marie Curie’s groundbreaking discoveries and her profound human struggles with remarkable literary grace.
More about “Madame Curie: A Biography” →
“It is difficult for me to tell you about my life in detail; it is so monotonous and, in fact, so uninteresting. Nevertheless I have no feeling of uniformity and I regret only one thing, which is that the days are so short and that they pass so quickly. One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done, and if one didn’t like the work it would be very discouraging.”
Marie Curie
“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, at whatever cost, must be attained.”
— Marie Curie Secondary source“But 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.”
— Marie Curie Primary source“I have no dress except the one I wear. If you are going to be kind enough to give me one [a wedding dress], please let it be practical and dark, so that I can put it on afterwards to go to the laboratory.”
— Marie Curie Secondary source“In science we must be interested in things, not in persons.”
— Marie Curie Secondary source“Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt Primary source“All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”
— John F. Kennedy Primary source“If you know that this life is all that you have, wouldn’t you make the most of it?”
— Ayn Rand Disputed“My life used to be full of everything. Now if you aren’t with me I haven’t a thing in the world.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source