Louis Pasteur quotes - page 3
My plan of study is traced for this coming year... I am hoping to develop it shortly in the most successful manner... I think that I have already told you that I am on the verge of mysteries, and that the veil which covers them is getting thinner and thinner. The nights seem to me too long, yet I do not complain... I am often scolded by Mme. Pasteur, but I console her by telling her that I shall lead her to fame.
Louis Pasteur
The human spirit, driven by an invincible force, will never cease to ask: What is beyond? Does he want to stop either in time or in space? Since the point at which he has reigned is only a finite magnitude, greater only than all those who have preceded him, he has scarcely begun to think of it as the implacable question and always without being able to silence his curiosity. There is nothing to answer: there are spaces, times or magnitudes without limits. No one understands these words.
Louis Pasteur
The Greeks understood the mysterious power of the hidden side of things. They bequeathed to us one of the most beautiful words in our language - the word "enthusiasm" - en theos [Εν Θεος] - a god within. The grandeur of human actions is measured by the inspiration from which they spring. Happy is he who bears a god within and obeys it.
Louis Pasteur
I confess frankly, however, that I am not competent on the question of our philosophical schools. Of M. Comte I have only read a few absurd passages; of M. Littré I only know the beautiful pages you were inspired to write by his rare knowledge and some of his domestic virtues. My philosophy is of the heart and not of the mind, and I give myself up, for instance, to those feelings about eternity which come naturally at the bedside of a cherished child drawing its last breath. At those supreme moments, there is something in the depths of our souls which tells us that the world may be more than a mere combination of phenomena proper to a mechanical equilibrium brought out of the chaos of the elements simply through the gradual action of the forces of matter.
Louis Pasteur
