This page contains quotes by women scientists that I have found to be inspirational.  Click on their name to jump to their section.  Please comment with any quotes/scientists you think should be added to the list! Click here for biographies of women scientists.

Marie Curie/Gertrude Elion/Maria Mitchell/Jane Goodall/Mae Jemison/Rosalind Franklin

Marie Curie, Physicist, Two-time Nobel Laureate (1867-1934)

Marie Curie

“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, at whatever cost, must be attained.”

“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.”

“Scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science, and then there is always the chance that a scientific discovery may become like the radium, a benefit.”

Gertrude B. Elion, Biochemist, Nobel Laureate (1918-1999)

“Don’t be afraid of hard work. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Don’t let others discourage you or tell you that you can’t do it. In my day I was told women didn’t go into chemistry. I saw no reason why we couldn’t.”

Gertrude B. Elion

“I had fallen in love with a young man…, and we were planning to get married. And then he died of subacute bacterial endocarditis… Two years later with the advent of penicillin, he would have been saved. It reinforced in my mind the importance of scientific discovery.”

“Nobody took me seriously. They wondered why in the world I wanted to be a chemist when no women were doing that. The world was not waiting for me.”

Maria Mitchell, Astronomer (1818-1889)

Maria Mitchell

“We have a hunger of the mind which asks for knowledge of all around us, and the more we gain, the more is our desire; the more we see, the more we are capable of seeing.”

“The world of learning is so broad, and the human soul is so limited in power!”

Jane Goodall, Primatologist (1934- present)

“As a small child in England, I had this dream of going to Africa. We didn’t have any money and I was a girl, so everyone except my mother laughed at it. When I left school, there was no money for me to go to university, so I went to secretarial college and got a job.”

Jane Goodall

“There are an awful lot of scientists today who believe that before very long we shall have unraveled all the secrets of the universe. There will be no puzzles anymore. To me it’d be really, really tragic because I think one of the most exciting things is this feeling of mystery, feeling of awe, the feeling of looking at a little live thing and being amazed by it and how its emerged through these hundreds of years of evolution and there it is and it is perfect and why.”

Mae Jemison, first African American woman in space (1956-present)

Mae Jemison

“There have been lots of other women who had the talent and ability before me. I think this can be seen as an affirmation that we’re moving ahead. And I hope it means that I’m just the first in a long line.”

“Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations…If you adopt their attitudes, then the possibility won’t exist because you’ll have already shut it out … You can hear other people’s wisdom, but you’ve got to re-evaluate the world for yourself.”

“I want to make sure we use all our talent, not just 25 percent.”

Rosalind Franklin, Biophysicist, Physical Chemist (1920-1958)

Rosalind Franklin

“You look at science (or at least talk of it) as some sort of demoralising invention of man, something apart from real life, and which must be cautiously guarded and kept separate from everyday existence. But science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated. Science, for me, gives a partial explanation for life. In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience and experiment.”