Organic Chemistry Quotes

• We define organic chemistry as the chemistry of carbon compounds.

  August Kekule

  Science, Nomenclature, Chemistry

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• I was invited to join the newly established Central Chemical Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1954 and was able to establish a small research group in organic chemistry, housed in temporary laboratories of an industrial research institute.

  George Andrew Olah

  Groups, Research, Able

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• Organic chemistry is the study of organs; inorganic chemistry is the study of the insides of organs.

  Max Shulman

  Science, Study, Chemistry

  Max Shulman (2016). “Barefoot Boy with Cheek: A Novel”, p.63, Open Road Media

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• Organic chemistry just now is enough to drive one mad. It gives me the impression of a primeval forest full of the most remarkable things, a monstrous and boundless thicket, with no way of escape, into which one may well dread to enter.

  Friedrich Wohler

  Giving, Mad, May

  19 Copy quote

• Be a physical chemist, an analytical chemist, an organic chemist, if you will; but above all, be a chemist.

  Ira Remsen

  Chemist, Ifs

  "The Life of Ira Remsen" by F.H. Getmen, (pp. 70-71), 1940.

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• Organic Chemistry has become a vast rubbish heap of puzzling and bewildering compounds.

  J. Norman Collie

  Rubbish, Chemistry, Compounds

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• Synthesis..., perhaps in greater measure than activities in any other area of organic chemistry, provides a measure of the condition and power of science. For synthetic undertakings are seldom if ever undertaken by chance, nor will the most painstaking, or inspired, purely observational activities suffice. Synthesis must always be carried out by plan.

  Robert Burns Woodward

  Synthesis, Chance, Chemistry

  12 Copy quote

• The organic material, as the laws of chemistry state, can neither be created nor destroyed.

  Dixie Lee Ray

  Law, Chemistry, States

  10 Copy quote

• In organic chemistry, we have learnt to derive from compounds containing only carbon and hydrogen, i.e. from the hydrocarbons, all other types of combinations, such as alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, acids, etc.

  Otto Wallach

  Alcohol, Hydrogen, Etc

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• I have always had the feeling that organic chemistry is a very peculiar science, that organic chemists are unlike other men, and there are few occupations that give more satisfactions [sic] than masterly experimentation along the old lines of this highly specialised science.

  Lawrence Joseph Henderson

  Men, Giving, Feelings

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• In inorganic chemistry the radicals are simple; in organic chemistry they are compounds—that is the sole difference.

  Jean-Baptiste Dumas

  Simple, Differences, Chemistry

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• I have always felt that I understood a phenomenon only to the extent that I could visualise it. Much of the charm organic chemical research has for me derives from structural formulae. When reading chemical journals, I look for formulae first.

  Donald Cram

  Reading, Firsts, Looks

  Donald J. Cram (1990). “From Design to Discover :”, Amer Chemical Society

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• I am afraid I shall have to give up my trade; I am far too inert to keep up with organic chemistry, it is becoming too much for me, though I may boast of having contributed something to its development. The modern system of formulae is to me quite repulsive.

  Friedrich Wohler

  Giving Up, Science, May

  15 Copy quote

• Four semesters of organic chemistry made a pilot out of me.

  Rick Perry

  Four, Pilots, Aviation

  "Matthews Delights in 'Ripping Scab' Off 'Ignorant,' Intellectual-Hating GOP" by Scott Whitlock, www.newsbusters.org. September 15, 2011.

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• It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.

  H. L. Mencken

  Women, Pregnancy, Science

  Minority Report: H. L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)

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• Physiology is the science which treats of the properties of organic bodies, animal and vegetable, of the phenomena they present, and of the laws which govern their actions. Inorganic substances are the objects of other sciences, - physics and chemistry.

  Johannes Peter Muller

  Animal, Vegetables, Law

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• I wanted to be a veterinarian, but slipped up when I hit organic chemistry.

  Amy Hempel

  Chemistry, Veterinarian, Wanted

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• In organic chemistry there exist certain types which are conserved even when, in place of hydrogen, equal volumes of chlorine, of bromine, etc. are introduced.

  Jean-Baptiste Dumas

  Hydrogen, Etc, Chlorine

  4 Copy quote

• I had no idea when I went to college what I'd be doing. I took organic chemistry and did terribly, but I was good in English and art. I took many courses and participated in as many activities as I could. I learned a lot about every single thing.

  Martha Stewart

  Art, College, Ideas

  "Power House". Interview with Emmie Twombly, preview.cosmogirl.com.

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