Chance favours a prepared mind.
Interpretation
Being prepared increases the likelihood of success when opportunities arise.
This quote by Louis Pasteur emphasizes the importance of preparation and knowledge in achieving success. It suggests that opportunities, or 'chance,' are more likely to present themselves to those who have diligently prepared themselves, highlighting that while luck plays a role, diligent preparation is crucial in turning opportunities into successes.
In practice
A teacher might use this quote to encourage students to study more rigorously before exams.
To demonstrate experimentally that a microscopic organism actually is the cause of a disease and the agent of contagion, I know no other way, in the present state of Science, than to subject the microbe (the new and happy term introduced by M. Sédillot) to the method of cultivation out of the body.
The universe is an asymmetrical entity. I am inclined to believe that life as it is manifested to us must be a function of the asymmetry of the universe or of the consequence of this fact. The universe is asymmetrical; for if one placed the entire set of bodies that compose the solar system, each moving in its own way, before a mirror, the image shown would not be superimposable on the reality.
These are the living springs of great thoughts and great actions. Everything grows clear in the reflections from the Infinite.
Without theory, practice is but routine born of habit. Theory alone can bring forth and develop the spirit of invention. ... [Do not] share the opinion of those narrow minds who disdain everything in science which has not an immediate application. ... A theoretical discovery has but the merit of its existence: it awakens hope, and that is all. But let it be cultivated, let it grow, and you will see what it will become.
These three things-work, will, success-fill human existences. Will opens the door to success, both brilliant and happy. Work passes these doors, and at the end of the journey success comes in to crown one's efforts.
Chance favors those who are prepared.
That's not such a bad thing,' he said to me. 'In nightmares we can think the worst. That's what they're for, I guess.
Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
These teachings are like a raft, to be abandoned once you have crossed the flood. Since you should abandon even good states of mind generated by these teachings, How much more so should you abandon bad states of mind!
Look behind you: What have you learned? Look around you: What is happening to others? Look above you: What does God expect of you? Look besides you: What resources are available to you?
I'm merely trying to give you the sort of argument that would appeal to your intelligence.
My folks tried to make a preacher of me and missed by a narrow margin… I would have made a good one if I hadn’t fallen into the fatal folly of reading anything I could lay hands on. With just a touch more self confidence and a liberal helping of ignorance I could have been a famous evangelist.
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