“One sometimes finds what one is not looking for. When I woke up just after dawn on Sept. 28, 1928, I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic, or bacteria killer. But I guess that was exactly what I did.”

One sometimes finds what one is not looking for.

Penicillin cures, but wine makes people happy.

Nature makes penicillin; I just found it.

It was astonishing that for some considerable distance around the mould growth the staphococcal colonies were undergoing lysis. What had formerly been a well-grown colony was now a faint shadow of its former self…I was sufficiently interested to pursue the subject.

Suggested remedy for the common cold: A good gulp of whiskey at bedtime-it’s not very scientific, but it helps.

Penicillin sat on a shelf for ten years while I was called a quack.

The unprepared mind cannot see the outstretched hand of opportunity.

If penicillin can cure those that are ill, Spanish sherry can bring the dead back to life.

It is the lone worker who makes the first advance in a subject: the details may be worked out by a team, but the prime idea is due to the enterprise, thought, and perception of an individual.

For the birth of something new, there has to be a happening. Newton saw an apple fall; James Watt watched a kettle boil; Roentgen fogged some photographic plates. And these people knew enough to translate ordinary happenings into something new.

(The discovery of penicillin) was a triumph of accident, a fortunate occurrence which happened while I was working on a purely academic bacteriological problem.

I play with microbes. There are, of course, many rules to this play…but when you have acquired knowledge and experience it is very pleasant to break the rules and to be able to find something nobody has thought of.

To know how to wonder and question is the first step of the mind toward discovery.

Maybe the target nowadays is not to discover what we are but to refuse what we are.

Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.

Discovered deeply within the depths of much suffering came forth my love of poetry.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land when they can see nothing but sea.

It is through weakness and vulnerability that most of us learn empathy and compassion and discover our soul.

Discovering more joy does not, save us from the inevitability of hardship and heartbreak.

I’ve heard it said that to love completely is to lose yourself. How can that be? when loving you is discovering myself over and over again.