Marie Curie

I was only fifteen when I finished my high-school studies, always having held first rank in my class. The fatigue of growth and study compelled me to take almost a year's rest in the country.

The death of my husband, coming immediately after the general knowledge of the discoveries with which his name is associated, was felt by the public, and especially by the scientific circles, to be a national misfortune.

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

I met Pierre Curie for the first time in the spring of the year 1894...

We worked in the one wooden shed, in a poverty which, looking back, seems to have been heroic.

The shed where we worked was poorly equipped and poorly protected from the weather.

The feeling of being always surrounded by a hostile and suspicious atmosphere was very painful, but it did not distract me from my work.

I am resolved to apply all my strength to serve mankind.

The older one gets, the more one feels that the present moment must be enjoyed; it is a precious gift, comparable to a state of grace.

I believe international work is a heavy task, but that it is nevertheless indispensable to go through an apprenticeship in it, at the cost of many efforts and also of a real spirit of sacrifice: however imperfect it may be, the work of Geneva has a grandeur that deserves our support.

All that I saw and learned that was new pleased me. It was like a new world opened to me, the world of science, which I was at last permitted to know in all liberty.

We must keep our certainty that after the bad days, the good times will return.

I am not angry that I was born a woman. I am only sorry that I have not been able to serve my country better.

It is my earnest desire that some of you should carry on this scientific work and keep for your ambition the determination to make a permanent contribution to science.

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

I have been frequently questioned, especially by women, of how I could reconcile family life with a scientific career. Well, it has not been easy.

We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves.

In our time, the development of science is so rapid, and the fields opened up to research are so vast, that it is impossible for a single worker to cover more than a very small part of the whole.

The various reasons we have just enumerated lead us to believe that the new radioactive substances contain a new element which we propose to give the name of radium.

The physics laboratory and the shed where we did our chemical work were two distinct places.