Friedrich Wöhler

The greatest joy for a chemist is to see a theoretical prediction confirmed in the flask.

Progress in science is often slow, because we must first unlearn what we thought we knew.

There is no royal road to chemistry; it requires hard work and dedication.

The elements are the letters, compounds are the words, and reactions are the sentences in the book of nature.

I consider the discovery of the isomerism of cyanic acid and fulminic acid one of the most fortunate events of my chemical career.

The mystery of life does not lie in a special 'vital force', but in the extraordinary complexity of chemical combinations.

A good experiment is one that answers a question, but a great experiment is one that raises new ones.

Chemistry and alchemy are separated not by a difference in goals, but by a difference in method: systematic experiment versus mystical speculation.

The unity of nature is demonstrated in the laboratory.

To understand a thing completely, one must be able to make it.

The history of chemistry is the history of the liberation of thought from the shackles of superstition.

I have spent my life listening to what molecules have to say.

The beauty of a crystal is the visible expression of the order of its atoms.

Doubt is the beginning of all chemical investigation.

Theoretical chemistry without experimental proof is like a ship without a rudder.

In the diversity of organic compounds, we see the infinite creativity of nature working with a limited set of elements.

The conversion of ammonium cyanate into urea showed that a mere change of arrangement could produce a substance of entirely different character.

The true value of a discovery lies not in its immediate utility, but in the new light it sheds on the workings of nature.