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

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

You’ll never make me believe women were made to walk on stilts. 

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. 

There is no connection between my scientific work and the facts of private life.

Men of moral and intellectual distinction could scarcely agree to teach in schools where an alien attitude was forced upon them. 

Have no fear of perfection; you’ll never reach it. 

One of our pleasures was to enter our workshop at night; then, all around us we would see the luminous silhouettes of the beakers and capsules that contained our products. 

This abnormal situation resulted in exciting the patriotic feeling of Polish youths to the highest degree. 

I continued my efforts to educate myself. This was no easy task under the Russian government of Warsaw; yet I found more opportunities than in the country.

It can be easily understood that there was no place in our life for worldly relations. 

I am among those who think that science has great beauty.

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. 

We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something.

Scientist believe in things, not in person 

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 mankind. ” 

Certein 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. 

Radium is not to enrich any one. It is an element; it is for all people.

So perished the hope founded on the wonderful being who thus ceased to be. In the study room to which he was never to return, the water buttercups he had brought from the country were still fresh. 

You must never be fearful of what you are doing when it is right

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. 

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.

 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. 

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

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. –

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. 

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. 

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