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Who really said it

One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done

Written by Marie Curie 1867–1934 · Physicist & chemist, twice Nobel laureate
Verified In copyright

From a letter Marie Curie wrote to her brother on March 18th, 1894, while she was a student in Paris. It is printed in Eve Curie’s biography Madame Curie, in Vincent Sheean’s English translation, and the wording is confirmed against the full text of that book.

Last verified 3 Nov 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Verified quote & credit

“One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done” Marie Curie, letter to her brother, 18 March 1894, in Eve Curie, Madame Curie, trans. Vincent Sheean (1937)

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Estate of Eve Curie / translator Vincent Sheean’s estate and publishers (Doubleday, Doran; William Heinemann)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

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Provenance

The letter

Work
Madame Curie: A Biography, by Eve Curie
Document
Letter from Marie to her brother, March 18th, 1894
Translation
Vincent Sheean (Doubleday, Doran, 1937; Heinemann, London, 1938)
Page
pp. 113–114 (Heinemann 1938 printing)

… It is difficult for me to tell you about my life in detail; it is so monotonous and, in fact, so uninteresting. Nevertheless I have no feeling of uniformity and I regret only one thing, which is that the days are so short and that they pass so quickly. One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done, and if one didn’t like the work it would be very discouraging. The popular quote stops at “remains to be done”

The quote that circulates is the first half of one sentence. In the letter, Curie goes on: “and if one didn’t like the work it would be very discouraging.”

Full text of Madame Curie (Heinemann 1938), Internet Archive

How we verified this

In copyright

Curie wrote the letter in 1894, but the English wording quoted here is Vincent Sheean’s translation in Eve Curie’s Madame Curie, first published in 1937. That translation is treated as in copyright in the US. Quoting the single sentence for commentary is ordinary fair use.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

How the line gets bent

This is one of the few popular Marie Curie lines that is genuine. Still, it gets cut short, and one reworded version is credited to someone else entirely.

The Buddha No source

A first-person rewording, “I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done,” appears in lists of Buddha quotes ↗ with no scripture or text cited. The wording matches Curie’s 1894 letter almost word for word.

Marie Curie (shortened) Cut short

The popular quote ends at “remains to be done.” In the printed letter ↗, the same sentence continues: “and if one didn’t like the work it would be very discouraging.”

The words are Marie Curie’s, from her letter to her brother of March 18th, 1894, as printed in Vincent Sheean’s translation of Eve Curie’s Madame Curie ↗.

Context

A student’s letter home

In March 1894, Marie Skłodowska was a student in Paris. According to her daughter Eve’s biography, she had passed first in the master’s examination in physics in 1893 and would place second in mathematics in 1894. Writing to her brother, she called her life “so monotonous and, in fact, so uninteresting,” yet her only regret was “that the days are so short and that they pass so quickly.”

The line about never noticing what has been done comes in the middle of that letter. Further on she urges her brother to finish his doctor’s thesis: “We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves.”

One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.

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Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

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Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Madame Curie — full text (Heinemann 1938)archive.org

Full text of Eve Curie's biography, translated by Vincent Sheean, including the 18 March 1894 letter
Madame Curie — first US edition (1937)archive.org

Catalog record for the Doubleday, Doran edition of the Sheean translation
Marie Curie on Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Sourced quotes; lists this line as from a letter to her brother (1894)
Ève Curieen.wikipedia.org

Biography of the daughter who wrote Madame Curie, published in 1937

The author

About Marie Curie

Marie Curie

1867–1934 · Polish-French physicist & chemist

Born Maria Skłodowska in Warsaw, Marie Curie studied in Paris and went on to pioneer research on radioactivity. With Pierre Curie she discovered polonium and radium. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences: physics in 1903 and chemistry in 1911.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Chicago

Marie Curie to her brother, March 18, 1894, in Eve Curie, Madame Curie: A Biography, trans. Vincent Sheean (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1937); text checked in the London: William Heinemann, 1938 printing, 113–114.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done’?” Last verified 3 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/one-never-notices-what-has-been-done-one-can-only-see-what/

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