Penicillin cures, but wine makes people happy.
Interpretation
While penicillin heals physical ailments, wine provides joy and happiness to people.
This quote by Alexander Fleming contrasts the medicinal properties of penicillin, which is critical for health and healing, with the joyful effects of wine, suggesting that while medicine addresses our physical needs, happiness and emotional well-being often come from other sources, such as social interactions and enjoyment of life.
In practice
This quote can be used in a toast at a celebration to emphasize the importance of happiness.
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.
Suggested remedy for the common cold: A good gulp of whiskey at bedtime-it's not very scientific, but it helps.
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.
It is the lone worker who makes the first advance in a subject: the details may be worked out by a team, but the prime idea is due to the enterprise, thought, and perception of an individual.
I ate apple pie and ice cream—it was getting better as I got deeper into Iowa, the pie bigger, the ice cream richer. There were the most beautiful bevies of girls everywhere I looked in Des Moines that afternoon—they were coming home from high school—but I had no time for thoughts like that…So I rushed past the pretty girls, and the prettiest girls in the world live in Des Moines.
Some people believe that to find happiness, you should live each day of your life as if it's your last because that way you will appreciate every single moment you have. Other people believe that you should live each day as if it's your first because then every day can be the beginning of a new journey.
The happiest people I know are people who don't even think about being happy. They just think about being good neighbors, good people. And then happiness sort of sneaks in the back window while they are busy doing good.
Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
The habit of being happy enables one to be freed, or largely freed, from the domination of outward conditions.
I don't think... one get a flash of happiness once, and never again; it is there deep within you.
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