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Books Quote by Sam Kean

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““Like his Russian contemporary Dostoevsky — who wrote his entire novel ‘The Gambler’ in three weeks to pay off desperate gambling debts — Mendeleev threw together his first table to meet a textbook publisher’s deadline.””

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Books Dostoevsky Mendeleev Periodic table

More by Sam Kean

“So while Pauling struggled with his model, Watson and Crick turned theirs inside out, so the negative phosphorus ions wouldn’t touch. This gave them…

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So if big enough droplets fell far enough fast enough, someone floating right near the metallic hydrogen layer inside Jupiter maybe, just maybe, could…

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Mendeleev, unlike the squeamish Meyer, had balls enough to predict that new elements would be dug up. Look harder, you chemists and geologists, he…

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“Lithium regulates the proteins that control the body’s inner clock. This clock runs, oddly, on DNA, inside special neurons deep in the brain. Special…

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“Despite the earnest belief of most of his fans, Einstein did not win his Nobel Prize for the theory of relativity, special or general.…

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“The irony is too rich not to point out. When arranging the different human races in tiers, from just below the angels to just…

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“Think of the most fussy science teacher you ever had. The one who docked your grade if the sixth decimal place in your answer…

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“For his part, Mendeleev scanned Lecoq de Boisbaudran’s data on gallium and told the experimentalist, with no justification, that he must have measured something…

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“Sir Isaac Newton famously said that he had achieved everything by standing on the shoulders of giants—the scientific men whose findings he built upon.…

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“If certain bacteria, fungi, or algae inch across something made of copper, they absorb copper atoms, which disrupt their metabolism (human cells are unaffected).…

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“Scarily, cadmium is not even the worst poison among the elements. It sits above mercury, a neurotoxin. And to the right of mercury sit…

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“Somehow, though, life turned that danger around, and this former poison became essential. It may sound trite, but this reversal always reminds me of…

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Explore all 58 Sam Kean quotes

More Books quotes

I think a new world will arise out of the religious mists when we approach our Bible with the idea that it is not…

Aiden Wilson Tozer

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If I had a dollar for every time I couldn’t sleep, I could buy a billion locks and finally read a book in peace.

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If what I write is literature, I guess you'd better emphasize the 'litter.'

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My sentences got sharper and my stories more efficient, and I gradually learned to imagine the reader more clearly and to empathize with that…

Karen Thompson Walker

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Young men, especially in America, write to me and ask me to recommend “a course of reading.” Distrust a course of reading! People who…

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“Within the pages of books, I've journeyed to Mandalay, the Milky Way and Santa Fe, without once having to leave my armchair.”

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The Rosary is the book of the blind.

Fulton J. Sheen

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“Tacitus did not write a most dangerous book. His readers made it so.”

Christopher K. Krebs

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“Take some books and read; that’s an immense help; and books are always good company if you have the right sort.”

Louisa May Alcott

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Reader, if you are gifted with nerves like mine, aspire to any character but that of a wit.

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I have many who keep me going, I am very fortunate in this sense. There is nothing like a child who knows more about…

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I think books in which people are really happy and things are going well are probably the most challenging novels there are to write,…

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