The Elements of Marie Curie Quotes

“A scientist in the laboratory is not only a technician, but also a child confronted by natural phenomena more enchanting than any fairy tale.”
― Dava Sobel, The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science

“To me it is absolutely indifferent whether a piece of work is carried out by a small woman in Bulgaria or by a tall man in America, as long as it is done well. And this is what we have to do: do things so well that no one would dare to say, “this is good work for a woman,” but that everyone will say, “this is good work.”
― Dava Sobel, The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science

“I take such great pleasure in speaking of new things with all these lovers of physics.”
― Dava Sobel, The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science

“One day Monsieur Petit, who had been a lab assistant at the industrial school, came to tell Marie that the old hangar behind the building on the rue Lhomond was about to be torn down to make room for a new wing. She immediately went with him to see the abandoned shed one last time. After a decade’s absence, she found Pierre’s blackboard still standing in its remembered place, still bearing a few faint lines in his hand that no one had bothered to erase.”
― Dava Sobel, The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science

“Now in her early thirties, Ellen could not imagine dividing her time between her chosen work and any man. When questioned on the subject of marriage, she would simply say that “chemistry is my everything.”
― Dava Sobel, The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science

“Ramsay had been knighted and awarded the 1904 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for a series of new element discoveries in the 1890s. All his finds were gases, and all of them unusual in their refusal to react with other elements. He named them for their standoffish behavior, from argon (Greek for “idle”) to xenon (“stranger”).”
― Dava Sobel, The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science

“At length they congratulated Mme. Curie on her historic success as the first woman in France to receive the PhD degree in physics. Automatically she became the first wife—as well as the first mother—to own that achievement. And although most of the audience remained ignorant of the fact, she was also the first person to defend a dissertation while pregnant.”
― Dava Sobel, The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science

“My little brother-in-law had the habit of disturbing me endlessly. He absolutely could not endure having me do anything but engage in agreeable chatter with him when I was at home. I had to declare war on him on this subject”
― Dava Sobel, The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science