Alexander Fleming Quotes

Some of the greatest things, as I understand, they have come about by serendipity, the greatest discoveries.

Some of the most important discoveries that scientists have made were not what they were seeking at the time.

Some things happen by accident - embrace them.

Everything I've done I've just fallen into.

You look for one thing and you find another.

A fool must now and then be right, by chance.

In reality, the most important things happen when you don't look for them.

Nothing I ever did I expected to do. It just kind of happened.

There are no mistakes, only happy accidents.

There'll always be serendipity involved in discovery.

Man never legislates, but destinies and accidents, happening in all sorts of ways, legislate in all sorts of ways.

You always end up getting involved in things because of, you know, the strange things your life brings you into contact with.

Even though things happen by accident, you also unconsciously choose things that help you.

A lot of times, really wonderful things that have come my way have come basically out of the blue.

Significant consequences can begin very inconsequentially. That's one thing that fascinates me. The other thing that fascinates me is how accident can undermine something that's unfolding, something that might have played out differently otherwise.

I tend to navigate by indirection, meaning that most of the major things in my life have happened when I've been thinking about something else.

My life is studded with a series of coincidences.

My life has been a series of slightly happy accidents.

If I look back, I think most of the things I did - the films, the books, the collaborations with these magazines - were mostly by accident.

It's like The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat, about the discovery of penicillin. Out of these strange accidents come huge discoveries. A certain purple bleeds into red and all of a sudden you have something unexpected.

Slightest accidents open up new worlds.

You never know when the next person to shake your hand at an autograph session, or the next guy you bump into on line at the pizza parlor, that could be your best friend for the rest of your life. Or it could be the person that two years later pushes you out of the way of a speeding bus. I mean, you just don't know.

It is true that my discovery of LSD was a chance discovery, but it was the outcome of planned experiments and these experiments took place in the framework of systematic pharmaceutical, chemical research. It could better be described as serendipity.

Serendipity... You will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called 'The Three Princes of Serendip': as their Highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.

It's a small world. It keeps recrossing itself.