Friedrich August Kekulé Quotes

8 Sourced Quotes

The separate atoms of a molecule are not connected all with all, or all with one, but, on the contrary, each one is connected only with one or with a few neighbouring atoms, just as in a chain link is connected with link.

Friedrich August Kekulé
We define organic chemistry as the chemistry of carbon compounds.

Friedrich August Kekulé
Carbon is, as may easily be shown and as I shall explain in greater detail later, tetrabasic or tetratomic, that is 1 atom of carbon = C6 = 12 is equivalent to 4 At. H.

Friedrich August Kekulé
Originally a pupil of Liebig, I became a pupil of Dumas, Gerhardt and Williamson: I no longer belonged to any school.

Friedrich August Kekulé
Certain ideas at certain times are in the air; if one man does not enunciate them, another will do so soon afterwards.

Friedrich August Kekulé
Gentlemen, if we learn to dream we may find out the truth; but let us avoid publishing our dreams before they have been tested by the wide-awake intelligence.

Friedrich August Kekulé
Let us learn to dream, gentlemen then perhaps we shall find the truth.... but let us beware of publishing our dreams before they have been put to the proof by the waking understanding.

Friedrich August Kekulé
Someone has said that the benzene theory appeared like a meteor from the sky. It came absolutely new and uninitiated. The human mind does not work in this manner. Nothing has ever been thought of which is absolutely new, certainly not in chemistry...

Friedrich August Kekulé