“I fell into a reverie, and lo, the atoms were gamboling before my eyes.”

— August Kekulé

Statements about a reverie in 1854 (1890), as quoted in "The Experimental Basis of Kekulé's Valence Theory" by Erwin N. Hiebert, in Journal of Chemical Education (1959)
Context: I fell into a reverie, and lo, the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. Whenever, hitherto, these diminutive beings had appeared to me, they had always been in motion. Now, however, I saw how, frequently, two smaller atoms united to form a pair: how a larger one embraced the two smaller ones; how still larger ones kept hold of three or even four of the smaller: whilst the whole kept whirling in a giddy dance. I saw how the larger ones formed a chain, dragging the smaller ones after them but only at the ends of the chains.

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August Kekulé 4

German organic chemist 1829–1896

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“I fell into a reverie, and lo, the atoms were gamboling before my eyes.”

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August Kekulé 4

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