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.

I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy.

There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.

After all, science is essentially international, and it is only through lack of the historical sense that national qualities have been attributed to it.

I am one of those who think like Nobel, that humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries.

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.

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.

I have no dress except the one I wear every day. If you are going to be kind enough to give me one, please let it be practical and dark so that I can put it on afterwards to go to the laboratory.

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.

Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.

In science, we must be interested in things, not in persons.

All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.

One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.

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.

All my mind was centered on my studies, which, especially at the beginning, were difficult. In fact, I was insufficiently prepared to follow the physical science course at the Sorbonne, for, despite all my efforts, I had not succeeded in acquiring in Poland a preparation as complete as that of the French students following the same course.

During the course of my research, I had had occasion to examine not only simple compounds, salts and oxides, but also a great number of minerals.

During the year 1894, Pierre Curie wrote me letters that seem to me admirable in their form. No one of them was very long, for he had the habit of concise expression, but all were written in a spirit of sincerity and with an evident anxiety to make the one he desired as a companion know him as he was.

I tried out various experiments described in treatises on physics and chemistry, and the results were sometimes unexpected. At times, I would be encouraged by a little unhoped-for success; at others, I would be in the deepest despair because of accidents and failures resulting from my inexperience.

I was only fifteen when I finished my high-school studies, always having held first rank in my class. The fatigue of growth and study compelled me to take almost a year's rest in the country. I then returned to my father in Warsaw, hoping to teach in the free schools.

In 1903, I finished my doctor's thesis and obtained the degree. At the end of the same year, the Nobel prize was awarded jointly to Becquerel, my husband and me for the discovery of radioactivity and new radioactive elements.

In 1906, just as we were definitely giving up the old shed laboratory where we had been so happy, there came the dreadful catastrophe which took my husband away from me and left me alone to bring up our children and, at the same time, to continue our work of research.

In chemical terms, radium differs little from barium; the salts of these two elements are isomorphic, while those of radium are usually less soluble than the barium salts.

My experiments proved that the radiation of uranium compounds can be measured with precision under determined conditions and that this radiation is an atomic property of the element of uranium.

Pierre Curie came to see me and showed a simple and sincere sympathy with my student life. Soon he caught the habit of speaking to me of his dream of an existence consecrated entirely to scientific research, and he asked me to share that life.

The death of my husband, coming immediately after the general knowledge of the discoveries with which his name is associated, was felt by the public, and especially by the scientific circles, to be a national misfortune.

Unknown in Paris, I was lost in the great city, but the feeling of living there alone, taking care of myself without any aid, did not at all depress me. If sometimes I felt lonesome, my usual state of mind was one of calm and great moral satisfaction.

We should not allow it to be believed that all scientific progress can be reduced to mechanisms, machines, gearings, even though such machinery also has its beauty. Neither do I believe that the spirit of adventure runs any risk of disappearing in our world.

You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for his 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.

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.

First principle: never to let one’s self be beaten down by persons or by events.

We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.

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 we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.

We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing at whatever cost must be attained.

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.

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

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.

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is to be understood.

Each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity.

Stability can only be attained by inactive matter.

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.

I want to direct films, because I am a painter and a sculptor and I've done a lot of writing.

The United Nations was not set up to be a reformatory. It was assumed that you would be good before you got in and not that being in would make you good.

I sense very little appetite for green efforts to persuade people to accept a frozen or declining standard of living for the sake of the environment. Recessions remind us that economic retreat or stagnation is painful, whatever the goal.

You can become a winner only if you are willing to walk over the edge.

Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity.

My children receive education that greatly emphasizes the fact they are part of a human group that has tradition, collective memory, and a state. I am a great believer in the need for Israel to be a Jewish state. I certainly believe my children will pass that on to their children.

I work on myself daily to be a better person. When I react in a negative way to somebody, I sit back and think about why I did it, so I'm always working on myself, and my music is the same.

I sang in church choir all my life, through elementary school, junior high and high school.

A lot of performers don't want to leave the circuit, the European opera house circuit, partly because most singers don't sing many concerts, or at least not while they are in their prime.