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.
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“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“We cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individual. Toward this end, each of us must work toward his own highest development, accepting at the same time his share of responsibility in the general life of humanity—our particular duty being to help those to whom we feel we can be most useful.”
— Marie Curie Secondary source“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike—and yet it is the most precious thing we have.”
— Albert Einstein Primary 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“Never interrupt someone doing something you said couldn’t be done.”
— Amelia Earhart Disputed“I have never felt that anything really mattered but the satisfaction of knowing that you stood for the things in which you believed, and had done the very best you could.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt Primary source