“Della vita non bisogna temere nulla. Bisogna solo capire.”
Origine: Citato in Maria Falcone, Giovanni Falcone: un eroe solo, Rizzoli, Milano, 2012, cap. 5 http://books.google.it/books?id=0OlWUVtNXFsC&pg=PT48. ISBN 978-88-58-62530-9
Maria Skłodowska, meglio nota come Marie Curie , è stata una chimica e fisica polacca e in seguito francese.
Nel 1903 fu insignita del premio Nobel per la fisica per i loro studi sulle radiazioni e, nel 1911, del premio Nobel per la chimica per la sua scoperta del radio e del polonio. Marie Curie è stata l'unica donna tra i quattro vincitori di più di un Nobel e, insieme a Linus Pauling, l'unica ad averlo vinto in due aree distinte.
Marie Curie crebbe nella Polonia russa; poiché qui le donne non potevano essere ammesse agli studi superiori, si trasferì a Parigi e nel 1891 iniziò a frequentare la Sorbona, dove si laureò in fisica e matematica. Nel dicembre del 1897 iniziò a compiere degli studi sulle sostanze radioattive, che da allora rimasero al centro dei suoi interessi. Dopo la morte accidentale del marito Pierre Curie, avvenuta nel 1906, le fu concesso di insegnare nella prestigiosa università della Sorbona. Due anni più tardi le venne assegnata la cattedra di fisica generale, diventando la prima donna ad insegnare alla Sorbona.
“Della vita non bisogna temere nulla. Bisogna solo capire.”
Origine: Citato in Maria Falcone, Giovanni Falcone: un eroe solo, Rizzoli, Milano, 2012, cap. 5 http://books.google.it/books?id=0OlWUVtNXFsC&pg=PT48. ISBN 978-88-58-62530-9
Origine: Citato nel documentario Marie Curie: al di là del mito, Rai 3, 8 aprile 2013.
Origine: Dal diario, 1934; citato nel documentario Marie Curie: al di là del mito, Rai 3, 8 aprile 2013.
Origine: Nel 1911, citato in Banesh Hoffmann, Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel, Viking, New York, 1972, pp. 98-99; citato in Albert Einstein, Pensieri di un uomo curioso (The Quotable Einstein), a cura di Alice Calaprice, prefazione di Freeman Dyson, traduzione di Sylvie Coyaud, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Milano, 1997, p. 173. ISBN 88-04-47479-3
As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.”
As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v
Contesto: 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.
'La vie n’est facile pour aucun de nous. Mais quoi, il faut avoir de la persévérance, et surtout de la confiance en soi. Il faut croire que l’on est doué pour quelque chose, et que, cette chose, il faut l'atteindre coûte que coûte.'
As quoted in Madame Curie : A Biography (1937) by Eve Curie Labouisse, Part 2, p. 116
Pierre Curie (1923), as translated by Charlotte Kellogg and Vernon Lyman Kellogg, p. 168
Lecture at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York (14 May 1921)
“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.”
Response to a reporter seeking an interview during a vacation with her husband in Brittany, who mistaking her for a housekeeper, asked her if there was anything confidential she could recount, as quoted in Living Adventures in Science (1972), by Henry Thomas and Dana Lee Thomas
This is stated to be a declaration she often made to reporters, in Madame Curie : A Biography (1937) by Eve Curie Labouisse, as translated by Vincent Sheean, p. 222
Variante: In science, we must be interested in things, not in persons.
Instructions regarding a proposed gift of a wedding dress for her marriage to Pierre in July 1895, as quoted in 'Madame Curie : A Biography (1937) by Eve Curie Labouisse, as translated by Vincent Sheean, p. 137
As quoted in White Coat Tales : Medicine's Heroes, Heritage and Misadventures (2007) by Robert B. Taylor, p. 141. The original Source is the last sentence of https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1903/pierre-curie-lecture.pdf
Misattributed
“One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.”
Letter to her brother (1894)
“All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.”
Pierre Curie (1923), as translated by Charlotte Kellogg and Vernon Lyman Kellogg, p. 162
“There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.”
As quoted in The Commodity Trader's Almanac 2007 (2006) by Scott W. Barrie and Jeffrey A. Hirsch, p. 44
“I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy.”
Java Connector Architecture: Building Custom Connectors and Adapters (2002) by Atul Apte, p. 69
“I am among those who think that science has great beauty.”
As quoted in Madame Curie : A Biography (1937) by Eve Curie Labouisse, as translated by Vincent Sheean, p. 341
Variant translation: 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.
Contesto: 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. 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. If I see anything vital around me, it is precisely that spirit of adventure, which seems indestructible and is akin to curiosity.
As quoted in Astrophysics of the Diffuse Universe (2003) by Michael A. Dopita and Ralph S. Sutherland
Contesto: 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. 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 consecrated to research.
Letter to Eve Curie (July 1929), as quoted in Madame Curie : A Biography (1937) by Eve Curie Labouisse, as translated by Vincent Sheean, p. 341