3 ms·

"Chance favours the prepared mind." (Can't remember who said it, but it is the crux of this article in many ways.)

• carbocation 17y ago
  "Dans les champs de l'observation le hasard ne favorise que les esprits préparés." - Pasteur (Various versions of this are available in English at http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur )
  • MrHyde 17y ago
    My best literal-ish interpretation "In the fields of observation (testing?) chance favors only the prepared spirits." It's interesting to me the explicit "only" construction, as opposed to the implied version in the typical English versions.
    • gmartres 17y ago
      I'm not a native English speaker, but isn't "minds" more appropriate than "spirits"?
      • MrHyde 17y ago
        I'm not a native French speaker. It's quite possible that minds would be better here. I don't really know; I think the distinction can frequently be subtle, at least in my conception of the two. Depending on the situation, I might consider either to be a strict subset of the other, which means I'm sometimes equivocating.