German Chemist Quotes

If molecules can be structurally identical and yet possess dissimilar properties, this can be explained only on the ground that the difference is due to a different arrangement of the atoms in space.

Johannes Wislicenus

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

No other substance in organic chemistry attracts the attention of the physiologist and chemist to a higher degree than uric acid.

Friedrich Wöhler

Everyone now agrees that a physics lacking all connection with mathematics...would only be an historical amusement, fitter for entertaining the idle than for occupying the mind of a philosopher.

Franz Karl Achard

As chemists, we must rename [our] scheme and insert the symbols Ba, La, Ce in place of Ra, Ac, Th. As nuclear chemists closely associated with physics, we cannot yet convince ourselves to make this leap, which contradicts all previous experience in nuclear physics.

All statements about the hydrides of boron earlier than 1912, when Stock began to work upon them, are untrue.

Chemistry without catalysis, would be a sword without a handle, a light without brilliance, a bell without sound.