Alexander Acosta Quotes
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Suggested remedy for the common cold: A good gulp of whiskey at bedtime-it's not very scientific, but it helps.
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Penicillin cures, but wine makes people happy.
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One sometimes finds what one is not looking for. When I woke up just after dawn on Sept. 28, 1928, I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic, or bacteria killer. But I guess that was exactly what I did.
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I am deeply grateful and honored for the opportunity to serve my country. I thank the President and his staff for their confidence in me and I am eager to work tirelessly on behalf of the American worker
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I think it's important that we eliminate regulations that are not serving a useful purpose.
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It was astonishing that for some considerable distance around the mould growth the staphococcal colonies were undergoing lysis. What had formerly been a well-grown colony was now a faint shadow of its former self...I was sufficiently interested to pursue the subject.
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My parents fled from a Cuban dictatorship in search of freedom. Growing up, I saw my parents struggle... I am here today because of them. My success is their success. Their sacrifice and perseverance made my education possible.
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The principle that needs to be used to guide the spending is, 'How successful is the program?'
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I had the kind of family where I was told it was my job to study. They would work out the finances.
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The unprepared mind cannot see the outstretched hand of opportunity.
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We all work for the president, and we all will ultimately follow his direction.
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The discovery of penicillin was a triumph of accident, a fortunate occurrence which happened while I was working on a purely academic bacteriological problem.
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It has been demonstrated that a species of penicillium produces in culture a very powerful antibacterial substance which affects different bacteria in different degrees. Generally speaking it may be said that the least sensitive bacteria are the Gram-negative bacilli, and the most susceptible are the pyogenic cocci ... In addition to its possible use in the treatment of bacterial infections penicillin is certainly useful... for its power of inhibiting unwanted microbes in bacterial cultures so that penicillin insensitive bacteria can readily be isolated.
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We are a nation built on principles of freedom, and high on the list of freedoms is freedom of religious expression.
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Efforts following 9/11 were important. They set a tone. They reminded those who might be tempted to take out their anger on an entire community that such actions were wrong.
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If penicillin can cure those that are ill, Spanish sherry can bring the dead back to life.
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Political views in the hiring of career attorneys and staff should not be used. If I am asked to do that, I will not allow it.
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For the birth of something new, there has to be a happening. Newton saw an apple fall; James Watt watched a kettle boil; Roentgen fogged some photographic plates. And these people knew enough to translate ordinary happenings into something new.
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Nature makes penicillin; I just found it.
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Penicillin sat on a shelf for ten years while I was called a quack.
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As a former prosecutor, I will always be on the side of the law and not any particular constituency.
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I play with microbes. There are, of course, many rules to this play...but when you have acquired knowledge and experience it is very pleasant to break the rules and to be able to find something nobody has thought of.
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I have been trying to point out that in our lives chance may have an astonishing influence and, if I may offer advice to the young laboratory worker, it would be this-never neglect an extraordinary appearance or happening. It may be-usually is, in fact-a false alarm that leads to nothing, but may on the other hand be the clue provided by fate to lead you to some important advance.
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In my first publication I might have claimed that I had come to the conclusion, as a result of serious study of the literature and deep thought, that valuable antibacterial substances were made by moulds and that I set out to investigate the problem. That would have been untrue and I preferred to tell the truth that penicillin started as a chance observation. My only merit is that I did not neglect the observation and that I pursued the subject as a bacteriologist. My publication in 1929 was the starting-point of the work of others who developed penicillin especially in the chemical field.