Louis Pasteur is a famous French chemist and microbiologist who invented most of the modern medicines we use today.
He is regarded as the father of germ theory, as he proved that germs cause diseases. His inventions led to the development of vaccinations, thus providing a breakthrough in preventing and curing several diseases.
Louis Pasteur invented pasteurization, a partial sterilization process of milk and wine to retain quality and make the products safe for consumption. He developed vaccines for incurable diseases like rabies and anthrax.
He performed experiments at the French Academy of Science to disprove the existing theory of spontaneous generation. His vast knowledge of science and the chemistry of elements of nature made him one of the most renowned scientists of the 19th century. Read some of his best quotes in this article.
Famous Louis Pasteur Quotes
The best and well-known Louis Pasteur quotes are compiled in the list here below.
"I give them experiments and they respond with speeches."
"Nothing is lost and nothing is created in the operations of art as those of nature."
"Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages."
"It would seem to me that I was committing a theft if I were to let one day go by without doing some work."
"A bottle of wine contains more philosophy than all the books in the world."
"Gentlemen, it is the microbes who will have the last word."
"In good philosophy, the word cause ought to be reserved to the single Divine impulse that has formed the universe."
"Since the most ancient times, all men, and particularly those who endeavored in the practice of medicine, have brought closer together two natural phenomena of capital importance: illness or fever and fermentation."
"If it is a terrifying thought that life is at the mercy of the multiplication of these minute bodies [microbes], it is a consoling hope that Science will not always remain powerless before such enemies."
"The artificial products do not have any molecular dissymmetry, and I could not indicate the existence of a more profound separation between the products born under the influence of life and all the others."
"After death, life reappears in a different form and with different laws."
"Terrestrial magnetism...the opposition between positive and negative electricity, are but resultants of asymmetrical actions and movements."
"The Ancients understood the omnipotence of the underside of things."
"The idea of God is a form of the idea of the Infinite.
As long as the mystery of the Infinite weighs on human thought, temples will be erected for the worship of the Infinite, whether God be called 'Brahma', 'Allah', 'Jehovah', or 'Jesus'; and on the pavement of those temples men will be seen kneeling, prostrate, annihilated, in the thought of the Infinite."
"Our only consolation, as we feel our strength failing us, is to feel that we may help those who come after us to do more and to do better than ourselves."
"God grant that by my persevering labors I may bring a little stone to the frail and ill-assured edifice of our knowledge of those deep mysteries of Life and Death where all our intellects have so lamentably failed."
"The Greeks understood the mysterious power of the underside of things. They are the ones who gave us one of the most beautiful words in our language, the word enthusiasm."
"I have the faith of a Breton peasant and by the time I die I hope to have the faith of a Breton peasant's wife."
"The human spirit, driven by an invincible force, will never cease to ask: What is beyond?"
"Without theory, practice is but routine born of habit. Theory alone can bring forth and develop the spirit of inventions."
"Do not promote what you can't explain, simplify, and prove early."
"When one works and imagines and dreams of nothing else than the search for answers that God has posed, it is difficult to be so still."
"There is a time in every man's life when he looks to his God, when he looks at his life, when he wonders how he will be remembered."
"The greatest disorder of the mind is to let will direct it."
"Oh my goodness the mystery that has prompted my objective. My quality lies exclusively in my tirelessness."
"Where are the real sources of human dignity, freedom, and modern democracy, if not in the concept of infinity to which all men are equal?"
"Will opens the door to success, both brilliant and happy."
"It is surmounting difficulties that make heroes."
"Intuition is given only to him who has undergone long preparation to receive it."
"It is not the germs we need worry about. It is our inner terrain."
"Question your priorities often, make sure God always comes first."
"One does not ask of one who suffers: What is your country and what is your religion? One merely says: You suffer, that is enough for me."
"The greatest derangement of the mind is to believe in something because one wishes it to be so."
Louis Pasteur Quotes On Science
These Louis Pasteur quotes on science will make you fall in love with the subject.
"Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch that illuminates the world."
"The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator."
"There is no such thing as applied science, only the application of pure science."
"When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments; tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become."
"There are two men in each one of us: the scientist, he who starts with a clear field and desires to rise to the knowledge of Nature through observations, experimentation, and reasoning, and the man of sentiment, the man of belief, the man who mourns his dead children, and who cannot, alas, prove that he will see them again, but who believes that he will, and lives in the hope – the man who will not die like a vibrio, but who feels that the force that is within him cannot die."
"A bit of science distances one from God, but much science nears one to Him."
"I am utterly convinced that Science and Peace will triumph over Ignorance and War, that nations will eventually unite not to destroy but to edify, and that the future will belong to those who have done the most for the sake of suffering humanity."
"The universe is asymmetrical; for if one placed the entire set of bodies that compose the solar system, each moving in its own way, before a mirror, the image shown would not be superimposable on the reality."
"I am on the verge of mysteries, and the veil which covers them is getting thinner and thinner."
"The night seems to me too long...Life, as manifested to us, is a function of the asymmetry of the universe."
"In the realm of scientific observation, luck is granted only to those who are prepared."
"One must not assume that an understanding of science is present in those who borrow the language."
"Science proceeds by successive answers to questions more and more subtle, coming nearer and nearer to the very essence of phenomena."
"If science has no country, the scientist should have one, and ascribe to it the influence which his works may have in this world."
"Bernard was right. The germ is nothing, the terrain is everything."
"How do you know that the incessant progress of science will not compel scientists to consider that life has existed during eternity, and not matter?"
"It is inscribed in the laws of the permanence of life on the surface of the earth and everything that has been a plant and an animal will be destroyed and transformed into a gaseous, volatile, and mineral substance."
Louis Pasteur Quotes On Experiments
Louis Pasteur conducted a lot of experiments and helped advance science. Read these quotes to learn Louis Pasteur's take on experiments.
"Live in the serene peace of laboratories and libraries."
"If you suppress laboratories, physical science will be stricken with barrenness and death."
"Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity."
"The nights seem to me too long... I am often scolded by Madame Pasteur, but I tell her I shall lead her to fame."
"As in the experimental sciences, truth cannot be distinguished from error as long as firm principles have not been established through the rigorous observation of facts."
"When you believe you have found an important scientific fact, and are feverishly curious to publish it, constrain yourself for days, weeks, years sometimes, fight yourself, try and ruin your own experiments, and only proclaim your discovery after having exhausted all contrary hypotheses.
But when, after so many efforts you have at last arrived at a certainty, your joy is one of the greatest which can be felt by a human soul."
"In that memorable year, 1822: Oersted, a Danish physicist, held in his hands a piece of copper wire, joined by its extremities to the two poles of a Volta pile."
"The universe is asymmetric and I am persuaded that life, as it is known to us, is a direct result of the asymmetry of the universe or of its indirect consequences."
"Work usually follows will."
"If perchance you should falter during the journey, a hand would be there to support you. If that should be wanting, God, who alone could take that hand from you, would Himself accomplish its work."
"You have not succeeded in your experiments, that is all there is to it."
"Wine is the healthiest and most health-giving of drinks."
"Outside their laboratories, the physician and chemist are soldiers without arms on the field of battle."
"But, whether our efforts are or not favored by life, let us be able to say, when we come near the great goal, 'I have done what I could.'"
"The greatest malfunction of spirit is to believe things."
"Do not put forward anything that you cannot prove by experimentation."
"The names of these organisms are very numerous and will have to be defined and in part discarded. The word microbe which has the advantage of being shorter and carrying a more general meaning, and of having been approved by my illustrious friend, M. Littré, the most competent linguist in France, is one we will adopt."
"Do not share the opinion of those narrow minds who disdain everything in science which has not an immediate application."
Louis Pasteur Quotes On Inventions
Louis Pasteur is a chemist of great knowledge who invented numerous cures and vaccines. Imagine the world if he hadn't invented vaccines. Read these quotes to learn how his inventions benefitted humankind.
"Chance favors the prepared mind."
"Worship the spirit of criticism."
"The only thing that can bring joy is work."
"The role of the infinitely small in nature is infinitely great."
"A wire carrying an electric current deviates a magnetized needle from its position. That, gentlemen, was the birth of the modern telegraph."
"Do not let yourself be tainted with a barren skepticism."
"Say to yourselves first: 'What have I done for my instruction?' and, as you gradually advance, 'What have I done for my country?' until the time comes when you may have the immense happiness of thinking that you have contributed in some way to the progress and to the good of humanity."
"Could I but know all, I would have the faith of a Breton peasant woman."
"The grandeur of human actions is measured by the inspiration from which they spring. Happy is he who bears a god within, and who obeys it."
"Never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation recover from the mortal blow struck by this simple experiment."
"Posterity will one day laugh at the sublime foolishness of the modern materialistic philosophy."
"These are the living springs of great thoughts and great actions. Everything grows clear in the reflections from the Infinite."
"Analogy cannot serve as proof."
"Did you ever observe to whom the accidents happen?"
"To demonstrate experimentally that a microscopic organism actually is the cause of a disease and the agent of contagion, I know no other way, in the present state of Science, than to subject the microbe (the new and happy term introduced by M. Sédillot) to the method of cultivation out of the body."
"The flavor of wine is like delicate poetry."
"These microscopic organisms form an entire world composed of species, families and varieties whose history, which has barely begun to be written, is already fertile in prospects and findings of the highest importance."
"On his table was a magnetized needle on its pivot, and he suddenly saw the needle move and take up a position quite different from the one assigned to it by terrestrial magnetism.
"Time is the best appraiser of scientific work, and I am aware that an industrial discovery rarely produces all its fruit in the hands of its first inventor."
"The controls of life are structured as forms and nuclear arrangements, in a relation with the motions of the universe."
"Virulence appears in a new light which cannot but be alarming to humanity; unless nature, in her evolution down the ages (an evolution which, as we now know, has been going on for millions, nay, hundreds of millions of years), has finally exhausted all the possibilities of producing virulent or contagious diseases - which does not seem very likely."
"A theoretical discovery has but the merit of its existence: it awakens hope, and that is all. But let it be cultivated, let it grow, and you will see what it will become."
