Monod Quotes

#1. What Jacob and Monod had discovered, in essence, was that each gene acts like a single line in a computer program.

Gary F. Marcus

#2. It is astonishing that Monod's Les Adieux are not better known. This courageous French Reformed pastor was both passionate in his care for people and singular in his devotion to God.

William Edgar

#3. 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

#4. 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

#5. The teacher's life should have three periods, study until twenty-five, investigation until forty, profession until sixty, at which age I would have him retired on a double allowance.

William Osler

#6. Have you ever been to Paris before?" I asked Kylian.
"No, though from what I've seen, I'm sure it's worth a trip. And even with what little I saw I think it's quite fitting for you to be the Patroness of Paris. You're like Paris and Paris is like you."
"Noisy?"
"A mystery.

Natalie Herzer

#7. Between the great things we cannot do and the small things we will not do, the danger is that we shall do nothing.

Adolphe Monod

#8. 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

#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. Happiness calls out responsive gladness in others. There is enough sadness in the world without yours ... never doubt the excellence and permanence of what is yet to be. Join the great company of those who make the barren places of life fruitful with kindness.

Helen Keller

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

Jacques Monod

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

Jacques Monod

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

Jacques Monod

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

Jacques Monod

#15. Do we ever have to abandon all hope? Is it not perhaps a good thing that by refusing to give in to the evidence, the dreams that lie half awake in us all may persist?

Theodore Monod

#16. Words are like Spices
Some are mellow
Some are sweet
Some are spicy
And some are bitter

Don't let the bitter ones ruin your palate for the wonderful tastes
in life that are coming your way!

Leeza Donatella

#17. 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

#18. 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

#19. 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

#20. We live in the worst country in the world. At least we do for lazy, inefficient, office-bound police, whose response to an extraordinary rise in violent crime is to order more speed cameras.

Jeremy Clarkson

#21. Well, that's what I still think, but I am in a rut at work--I hate my job,' I said, allowing my emotions to find words.

Luke Lively

#22. 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

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

Jacques Monod

#24. It is about a dragon and a prince and a princess." "Oh, lovely! Does it end happily?" "Happily for the humans. Not so well for the dragon." "Just as it should be. Commence.

Michael D. O'Brien

#25. 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

#26. She sent Death a thought, one she hoped would be her final gift. The Game means something only because we lose. That is your gift to humans. So thank you.

Martha Brockenbrough

#27. Just - you share your body, you open a part of yourself and make it vulnerable.

Kristen Ashley

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

Jacques Monod

#29. Chance and necessity.

Jacques Monod

#30. Emerging from barbarism is a slow process and as man is , geologically speaking, still very young, he has his whole future before him.

Theodore Monod

#31. It was a time before Facebook and Instagram and texting. I imagine it must be easier now, for college students. Home must not feel so far away anymore. But how do you cut the apron strings if the strings are virtual?

Kirstie Collins Brote