Rosalyn Sussman Yalow

The only difference between men and women in science is that the women have the babies. This makes it more difficult for women in science but should not be seen as a barrier, for it is merely another challenge to be overcome.

We still live in a world in which a significant fraction of people, including women, believe that a woman belongs and wants to belong exclusively in the home.

We bequeath to you, the next generation, our knowledge but also our problems. While we still live, let us join hands, hearts and minds to work together for their solution so that your world will be better than ours and the world of your children even better.

The failure of women to have reached positions of leadership has been due in large part to social and professional discrimination.

I feel it is now my duty to speak to young women, to encourage them to have careers and, particularly, careers in science.

I wasn't handed college or graduate school or anything else on a silver platter. I had to work very hard, but I did it because I wanted to. That's the real key to happiness. I think unhappy people are those who feel that circumstances are forcing them into a pattern. Happy people are not slaves to the system.

They told me that, as a woman, I'd never get into graduate school in physics, so they got me a job as a secretary at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and promised that, if I were a good girl, I would take courses there.