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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index W > Richard Willstätter Quotes

Thumbnail of Richard Willstätter (source)
Richard Willstätter
(13 Aug 1872 - 3 Aug 1942)

German chemist.


Science Quotes by Richard Willstätter (4 quotes)

[Fritz Haber's] greatness lies in his scientific ideas and in the depth of his searching. The thought, the plan, and the process are more important to him than the completion. The creative process gives him more pleasure than the yield, the finished piece. Success is immaterial. “Doing it was wonderful.” His work is nearly always uneconomical, with the wastefulness of the rich.
— Richard Willstätter
In Richard Willstätter, Arthur Stoll (ed. of the original German) and Lilli S. Hornig (trans.), From My Life: The Memoirs of Richard Willstätter (1958), 268.
Science quotes on:  |  Completion (23)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Depth (97)  |  Doing (277)  |  Finish (62)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Fritz Haber (4)  |  Idea (881)  |  Immaterial (6)  |  Importance (299)  |  Lie (370)  |  More (2558)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Plan (122)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Process (439)  |  Rich (66)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Search (175)  |  Success (327)  |  Thought (995)  |  Wastefulness (2)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Work (1402)  |  Yield (86)

Baeyer—a chemist who was more of an encyclopedist than a researcher.
— Richard Willstätter
In Richard Willstätter, Arthur Stoll (ed. of the original German) and Lilli S. Hornig (trans.), From My Life: The Memoirs of Richard Willstätter (1958), 174.
Science quotes on:  |  Adolf von Baeyer (4)  |  Chemist (169)  |  More (2558)  |  Researcher (36)

I watched Baeyer activating magnesium with iodine for a difficult Grignard reaction; it was done in a test tube, which he watched carefully as he moved it gently by hand over a flame for three quarters of an hour. The test tube was the apparatus to Baeyer.
— Richard Willstätter
In Richard Willstätter, Arthur Stoll (ed. of the original German) and Lilli S. Hornig (trans.), From My Life: The Memoirs of Richard Willstätter (1958), 140.
Science quotes on:  |  Activation (6)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Adolf von Baeyer (4)  |  Care (203)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Flame (44)  |  Gentle (9)  |  Hand (149)  |  Hour (192)  |  Iodine (7)  |  Magnesium (4)  |  Move (223)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Test (221)  |  Test Tube (13)  |  Watch (118)  |  Watching (11)

We should misjudge this scientist [Fritz Haber] seriously if we were to judge him only by his harvest. The stimulation of research and the advancement of younger scholars become ever more important to him than his own achievements.
— Richard Willstätter
In Richard Willstätter, Arthur Stoll (ed. of the original German) and Lilli S. Hornig (trans.), From My Life: The Memoirs of Richard Willstätter (1958), 269.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Advancement (63)  |  Become (821)  |  Fritz Haber (4)  |  Harvest (28)  |  Importance (299)  |  Judge (114)  |  More (2558)  |  Research (753)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Stimulation (18)  |  Young (253)  |  Younger (21)


See also:
  • 13 Aug - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Willstätter's birth.

Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
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