“Here is an infusion of organic matter, as limpid as distilled water, and extremely alterable. It has been prepared to-day. To-morrow it will contain animalculae, little infusories, or flakes of mouldiness.”

— Louis Pasteur, Soirées scientifiques de la Sorbonne (1864), translation from The Life of Pasteur, pp. 141-142

About Louis Pasteur

1822 – 1895

French chemist and microbiologist who developed pasteurization and helped establish the germ theory of disease.

“Chance favors only the prepared mind.”

“In the fields of observation chance favours only the prepared mind.”

“There does not exist a category of science to which one can give the name applied science.”

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

“It is unlikely that the good of a snail should reside in its shell: so is it likely that the good of a man should?”

“In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught; but in life there are many things to draw us aside.”

“If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces.”

“That which makes the man no worse than he was makes his life no worse: it has no power to harm, without or within.”

“Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.”