1. germ - Noun
2. germ - Verb
3. Germ - Proper noun
That which is to develop a new individual; as, the germ of a fetus, of a plant or flower, and the like; the earliest form under which an organism appears.
That from which anything springs; origin; first principle; as, the germ of civil liberty.
Source: Webster's dictionaryGerm.
Growth itself contains the germ of happiness. Pearl S. Buck
A child who is protected from all controversial ideas is as vulnerable as a child who is protected from every germ. The infection, when it comes- and it will come- may overwhelm the system, be it the immune system or the belief system. Jane Smiley
A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ. John Steinbeck
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition. Thomas Jefferson
To be discontented with the divine discontent, and to be ashamed with the noble shame, is the very germ of the first upgrowth of all virtue. Charles Kingsley
Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. James Madison