'It would, nevertheless, be a beautiful thing in which I hardly dare believe, to pass through life together hypnotized in our dreams: your dream for your country, our dream for humanity, our dream for science. Of all these dreams, I believe the last alone is legitimate. I mean to say by this that we are powerless to change the social order. Even if this were not true we should not know what to do. And in working without understanding, we should never be sure that we were not doing more harm than good, by retarding some inevitable evolution. From the point of view of science, on the contrary, we can pretend to accomplish something. The territory here is more solid and obvious, and however small it is, it is truly in our possession.'
Pierre Curie
