"There are in life conjunctions of circumstances when the reproach that we are not Voltaires is least of all appropriate."

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No, there is now no circumstance known in which it can be affirmed that microscopic beings came into the world without germs, without parents similar to themselves. Those who affirm it have been duped by illusions, by ill-conducted experiments, spoilt by errors that they either did not perceive or did not know how to avoid.

— Louis Pasteur