Marie Curie, the first female scientist to win the Nobel Prize for her discovery of radium, is an example of a self-funding entrepreneur.
Marie Curie grew up in a low-income family, and at the age of 18, she was offered a position as a teacher at a girls’ school. Marie was not content with teaching and desired instead to pursue her passion in science. With support from friends and family, Marie attended college in Paris, where she studied mathematics and physics after being inspired by learning about Bohr’s model for atoms. Marie also took on various jobs that enabled her to afford basic expenses (i.e., rent) in pursuit of her passion.
These are some of her most inspirational quotes that will increase your self-improvement to make your life a better living.
45 Inspiring Marie Curie Quotes To improve Your Greatness
“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.”
“All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.”
“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.”
“There is nothing more wonderful than being a scientist, nowhere I would rather be than in my lab, staining up my clothes and getting paid to play.”
“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that?”
“It is important to make a dream of life and of a dream reality.”
“It is my earnest desire that some of you should carry on this scientific work and keep for your ambition the determination to make a permanent contribution to science.”
“When one studies strongly radioactive substances special precautions must be taken. Dust, the air of the room, and one’s clothes, all become radioactive.”
“A great discovery does not issue from a scientists brain ready-made, like Minerva springing fully armed from Jupiter’s head; it is the fruit of an accumulation of preliminary work.”
“You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals.”
“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.”
“I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.”
“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.”
“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.”
“It can be easily understood that there was no place in our life for worldly relations.”
“Without doubt, these dreamers do not deserve wealth, because they do not desire it. Even so, a well-organized society should assure to such workers the efficient means of accomplishing their task, in a life freed from material care and freely consecrate.”
“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.”
“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.”
“You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for our own improvement.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Knowledge leaves no regrets. Except for radiation. I wish I’d never messed with that.”
“There is no connection between my scientific work and the facts of private life.”
“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.”
“You must never be fearful of what you are doing when it is right.”
“Humanity needs practical men, who get the most out of their work, and, without forgetting the general good, safeguard their own interests. But humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit.”
“You’ll never make me believe women were made to walk on stilts.”
“The older one gets, the more one feels that the present moment must be enjoyed, comparable to a state of grace.”
“Sometimes my courage fails me and I think I ought to stop working, live in the country and devote myself to gardening. But I am held by a thousand bonds, and I don’t know when I shall be able to arrange things otherwise. Nor do I know whether, even by writing scientific books, I could live without the laboratory.”
“If I see anything vital around me, it is precisely that spirit of adventure, which seems indestructible and is akin to curiosity
“I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy.”
“It was like a new world opened to me, the world of science, which I was at last permitted to know in all liberty.”
“You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for our 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.”
“I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale.”
“Certain bodies become luminous when heated. Their luminosity disappears after some time, but the capacity of becoming luminous afresh through heat is restored to them by the action of a spark, and also by the action of radium.”
“We must act.”
“Have no fear of perfection; you’ll never reach it.”
“I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy.”
“I am one of those who think, like Nobel, that humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries.”
“I am one of those who think like Nobel, that humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries.”
“There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.”
“We cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individual. Toward this end, each of us must work for his own highest development, accepting at the same time his share of responsibility in the general life of humanity—our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.”
