Jacques Monod Quotes

#1. I became fascinated by the then-blossoming science of molecular biology when, in my senior year, I happened to read the papers by Francois Jacob and Jacques Monod on the operon theory.

Susumu Tonegawa

#2. Everything comes from experience; yet not from actual experience, reiterated by each individual with each generation, but instead from experience accumulated by the entire ancestry of the species in the course of its evolution.

Jacques Monod

#3. Every living being is also a fossil. Within it, all the way down to the microscopic structure of its proteins, it bears the traces if not the stigmata of its ancestry.

Jacques Monod

#4. Man's destiny is nowhere spelled out, nor is his duty.

Jacques Monod

#5. A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it.

Jacques Monod

#6. Man finally knows that he is alone in the indifferent immensity of the Universe, from which he emerged by accident.

Jacques Monod

#7. A totally blind process can by definition lead to anything; it can even lead to vision itself.

Jacques Monod

#8. I rarely give advice - your personal growth will only make me look worse by comparison - but as a suggestion, find your most psychotic baby picture and have it on hand for those days when you want to throw in the towel. It is both joyful and effective.

Anna Kendrick

#9. There are living systems; there is no living "matter." No substance, no single molecule, extracted and isolated from a living being possess, of its own, the aforementioned paradoxical properties. They are present in living systems only; that is to say, nowhere below the level of the cell.

Jacques Monod

#10. In science there is and will remain a Platonic element which could not be taken away without ruining it. Among the infinite diversity of singular phenomena science can only look for invariants.

Jacques Monod

#11. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. It matters what you think of yourself and what your children think. So if anyone is going to ask my advice, I'd say, do what is right for you and don't give a shit what anyone else thinks

Gwyneth Paltrow

#12. The ancient covenant is in pieces; man knows at last that he is alone in the universe's unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only by chance. His destiny is nowhere spelled out, nor is his duty. The kingdom above or the darkness below: it is for him to choose.

Jacques Monod

#13. In science, self-satisfaction is death. Personal self-satisfaction is the death of the scientist. Collective self-satisfaction is the death of the research. It is restlessness, anxiety, dissatisfaction, agony of mind that nourish science.

Jacques Monod

#14. What I have tried to show is that the scientific attitude implies what I call the postulate of objectivity - that is to say, the fundamental postulate that there is no plan, that there is no intention in the universe.

Jacques Monod

#15. If people can't make ends meet at home with food, benefits, health, and health care in particular, how can they be present, engaged, knowledge workers when they come to work?

Mark T Bertolini

#16. The walk of Faith is to live according to the revelation we have received, in the midst of the mysteries we can't explain.

Bill Johnson

#17. What is true for E. coli is also true for the elephant.

Jacques Monod

#18. I will never be yours, and you will never be mine; nevertheless, I can honestly say: I love you, I love you, I love you.

Paulo Coelho

#19. The future of mankind is going to be decided within the next two generations, and there are two absolute requisites: We must aim at a stable-state society [with limited population growth] and the destruction of nuclear stockpiles. ... Otherwise I don't see how we can survive much later than 2050.

Jacques Monod

#20. Chance alone is at the source of all novelty, all creation in the biosphere.

Jacques Monod

#21. Chance and necessity.

Jacques Monod