Christiane Nusslein-Volhard famous quotes

03-25-2025

I immediately loved working with flies. They fascinated me, and followed me around in my dreams.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#Dream #Genetics
The three of us have worked on the development of the small and totally harmless fruit fly, Drosophila. This animal has been extremely cooperative in our hands - and has revealed to us some of its innermost secrets and tricks for developing from a single celled egg to a complex living being of great beauty and harmony. ... None of us expected that our work would be so successful or that our findings would ever have relevance to medicine.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#Successful #Animal #Hands
In mathematics and science, there is no difference in the intelligence of men and women. The difference in genes between men and women is simply the Y chromosome, which has nothing to do with intelligence.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#Men #Differences #Mathematics
In systemic searches for embryonic lethal mutants of Drosophila melanogaster we have identified 15 loci which when mutated alter the segmental patterns of the larva. These loci probably represent the majority of such genes in Drosophila. The phenotypes of the mutant embryos indicate that the process of segmentation involves at least three levels of spatial organization: the entire egg as developmental unit, a repeat unit with the length of two segments, and the individual segment.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#Science #Eggs #Organization
I think there are profound differences between women and men. In intelligence and creativity, there is no difference, but in what one loves, what one likes, the passions - there are differences.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#Passion #Creativity #Men
At the time I finished high school, I was determined to study biology, deeply convinced to eventually be a researcher.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#School #Determined #Study
Successful women are not liked. I think the biggest danger for women in science is colleagues who are not as good as you are.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#Successful #Thinking #Danger
Everyone thinks I must have been an ace in school. But I didn't work hard, I was lazy. I liked to be lazy. I thought laziness stimulated your imagination.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#Hard Work #School #Thinking
I think women are just as gifted when it comes to science as men are. But I think their wishes and desires are different and this is also shaped by the society in which they live.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#Men #Thinking #Wish
The pressure on kids is high to get good grades. In my time, no one cared about it. My father looked at them but he didn't really make much fuss about them.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#Father #Kids #Pressure
I had a very intense relationship with my father, who was always extremely interested in what we kids were doing. I actually think the secret of many successful women is having a father who encourages them.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#Father #Kids #Successful
I was always trying to look modest and natural. I don't like women who come into the lab and you see immediately that it took them two hours to dress in the morning.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#Morning #Two #Always Trying
I was raised with this idea of hard work and keeping doors open. To be able to choose what you want to do in the future. That was what we tried to tell our children, too.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#Children #Hard Work #Doors
I think there is too much attention on mentoring. If people want to be scientists, they will figure out how to do it. They need to figure it out by themselves.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#Thinking #People #Needs
I know labs where women refuse to make a coffee for others because they don't want to be seen doing seemingly female things. I think this is stupid. Why not make a coffee, bring a cake? I do it.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#Stupid #Coffee #Thinking
The drive to want to know is innate in people. You cannot influence this. I think in contrast it is harmful if you push kids too far in a particular direction.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#Kids #Thinking #People
In my age group I don't know a single woman who is as successful as I am. I am the total exception. You can be very proud of it. But you are also very isolated.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#Successful #Age #Groups
If woman wants to have kids and work a little less she has a big disadvantage compared to a male colleague who has a stay-at-home wife packing his suitcases.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#Home #Kids #Wife
Not everybody is talented for doing research. I think many women prefer to look for an easier job after their dissertations because it is very demanding. You have to be mobile. You have to move to different places for your post-doc training. And if you aren't successful, it isn't a very pleasant job, either.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#Jobs #Moving #Successful
I think women who are pretty certainly have an advantage in any field, in any profession. When a girl is born people still say: Oh, I'm glad that she is pretty. They don't look at whether she is intelligent.
-- Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

#Girl #Intelligent #Thinking

You may also like:

Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
Former Prime Minister of Italy
Dario Fo
Actor
Dorothy Hodgkin
Biochemist
Edward B. Lewis
Frederic Joliot-Curie
Physicist
Gertrude B. Elion
Innovator
Gottfried Leibniz
Mathematician
Hermann Joseph Muller
James Black
Pharmacologist
Lewis Wolpert
Author
Lise Meitner
Physicist
Maria Goeppert-Mayer
Physicist
Marie Curie
Physicist
Max Born
Physicist
Primo Levi
Chemist
Rita Levi-Montalcini
Scientist
Rosalind Franklin
Scientist
Rosalyn Sussman Yalow
Physicist
Thomas Hunt Morgan
Author
Tsung-Dao Lee
Physicist