The unprepared mind cannot see the outstretched hand of opportunity.

Alexander Fleming

Scientists

Alexander Fleming

Scottish bacteriologist born in 1881 who discovered penicillin in 1928, opening the antibiotic age. Shared the 1945 Nobel Prize. His find is the iconic example of serendipity in science.

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Alexander Fleming's Other Quotes

One sometimes finds what one is not looking for.

The time may come when penicillin can be bought by anyone in the shops. Then there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant.