Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934), known simply as Marie Curie (was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields. Her husband, Pierre Curie, was a co-winner of her first Nobel Prize, making them the first-ever married couple to win the Nobel Prize and launching the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was, in 1906, the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris.

Marie Curie Quotes

1. “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.”
— Marie Curie

2. “Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.”
— Marie Curie

3. “We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.”
— Marie Curie

4. “Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.”
— Marie Curie

5. “First principle: never to let one’s self be beaten down by persons or by events.”
— Marie Curie

6. “You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals.”
— Marie Curie

7. “I am among those who think that science has great beauty.”
— Marie Curie

8. “Life is not easy for any for us.”
— Marie Curie

9. “I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy.”
— Marie Curie

10. “I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.”
— Marie Curie

11. “We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves.”
— Marie Curie

12. “All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.”
— Marie Curie

13. “Stability can only be attained by inactive matter.”
— Marie Curie

14. “Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance.”
— Marie Curie

15. “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.”
— Marie Curie

16. “Scientist believe in things, not in person.”
— Marie Curie

17. “There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.”
— Marie Curie

18. “Now is the time to understand more, so we fear less.”
— Marie Curie

19. “You can only analyze the data you have. Be strategic about what to gather and how to store it.”
— Marie Curie

20. “It’s always good to marry your best friend.”
— Marie Curie

21. “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.”
— Marie Curie

22. “Each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity.”
— Marie Curie

23. “I was taught the method for advancement is not quick or simple.”
— Marie Curie

24. “Radium is not to enrich any one. It is an element; it is for all people.”
— Marie Curie

25. “It was like a new world opened to me, the world of science, which I was at last permitted to know in all liberty.”
— Marie Curie

26. “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.”
— Marie Curie

27. “I am one of those who think like Nobel, that humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries.”
— Marie Curie

28. “Just remember you will find that one special love that you know is right but for some reason just doesn’t last.”
— Marie Curie

29. “I have the best husband one could dream of; I could never have imagined finding one like him. He is a true gift of heaven, and the more we live together the more we love each other.”
— Marie Curie

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

31. “After all, science is essentially international, and it is only through lack of the historical sense that national qualities have been attributed to it.”
— Marie Curie

32. “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 place before natural phenomenon, which impress him like a fairy tale.”
— Marie Curie

33. “The older one gets, the more one feels that the present must be enjoyed; it is a precious gift, comparable to a state of grace.”
— Marie Curie

34. “I have no dress except the one I wear every day. If you are going to be kind enough to give me one, please let it be practical and dark so that I can put it on afterwards to go to the laboratory.”
— Marie Curie

35. “My husband and I were so closely united by our affection and our common work that we passed nearly all of our time together.”
— Marie Curie

36. “We must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals.”
— Marie Curie

37. “More and more, I feel the need for a house and a garden.”
— Marie Curie

38. “You must never be fearful of what you are doing when it is right.”
— Marie Curie

39. “The various reasons which we have enumerated lead us to believe that the new radio-active substance contains a new element which we propose to give the name of radium.”
— Marie Curie

40. “All that I saw and learned was a new delight to me…”
— Marie Curie

41. “This means that we have here an entirely separate kind of chemistry for which the current tool we use is the electrometer, not the balance, and which we might well call the chemistry of the imponderable.”
— Marie Curie

42. “When one studies strongly radioactive substances special precautions must be taken. Dust, the air of the room, and one’s clothes, all become radioactive.”
— Marie Curie

43. “We must keep our certainty that after the bad days the good times will come again.”
— Marie Curie

44. “So perished the hope founded on the wonderful being who thus ceased to be. In the study room to which he was never to return, the water buttercups he had brought from the country were still fresh.”
— Marie Curie