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Rosalind Franklin Quotes


 

“Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated.”

 

“We wish to discuss a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid. This structure has novel features which are of considerable biologic interest.”

 

“Science, for me, gives a partial explanation for life. In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience and experiment.”

 

“My method of thought and reasoning is influenced by a scientific training, if that were not so my scientific training will have been a waste and a failure.”

 

“I see no reason to believe that a creator of protoplasm or primeval matter, if such there be, has any reason to be interested in our insignificant race in a tiny corner of the universe, and still less in us, as still more insignificant individuals.”

 

“Again, I see no reason why the belief that we are insignificant or fortuitous should lessen our faith.”

 

“I agree that faith is essential to success in life but I do not accept your definition of faith.”

 

“What's the use of doing all this work if we don't get some fun out of this?”

 

“I would willingly go more primitive if it were necessary to preserve my freedom.”

 

“In my view, all that is necessary for faith is the belief that by doing our best we shall succeed in our aims: the improvement of mankind.”

 

“Your faith rests on the future of yourself and others as individuals, mine in the future and fate of our successors.”

 

“I maintain that faith in this world is perfectly possible without faith in another world.”

 

“Your theories are those which you and many other people find easiest and pleasantest to believe, but so far as I can see, they have no foundation other than they leaf to a pleasanter view of life (and an exaggerated idea of our own importance).”

 

“The results suggest a helical structure which must be very closely packed containing probably 2, 3 or 4 coaxial nucleic acid chains per helical unit and having the phosphate groups near the outside.”

 

“Traveling around in a little tin box isolates one from the people and the atmosphere of the place in a way that I have never experienced before.”

 

“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”

 

“Conclusion: Big helix in several chains, phosphates on outside, phosphate-phosphate inter-helical bonds disrupted by water. Phosphate links available to proteins.”


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