Albert Szent-Gyorgyi Quotes - Page 2

All living organisms are but leaves on the same tree of life. The various functions of plants and animals and their specialized organs are manifestations of the same living matter. This adapts itself to different jobs and circumstances, but operates on the same basic principles. Muscle contraction is only one of these adaptations. In principle it would not matter whether we studied nerve, kidney or muscle to understand the basic principles of life. In practice, however, it matters a great deal.

I always tried to live up to Leo Szilard's commandment, "don't lie if you don't have to." I had to. I filled up pages with words and plans I knew I would not follow. When I go home from my laboratory in the late afternoon, I often do not know what I am going to do the next day. I expect to think that up during the night. How could I tell them what I would do a year hence?

Life is a wondrous phenomenon.

Science has helped us to understand and master ourselves, creating an elevated new form of human life, the wealth and beauty of which cannot be pictured today by the keenest imagination.

A discovery must be, by definition, at variance with existing knowledge. During my lifetime, I made two. Both were rejected offhand by the popes of the field. Had I predicted these discoveries in my applications, and had those authorities been my judges, it is evident what their decisions would have been.

If I go out into nature, into the unknown, to the fringes of knowledge, everything seems mixed up and contradictory, illogical, and incoherent. This is what research does; it smooths out contradictions and makes things simple, logical, and coherent.

Why does man behave like perfect idiot? This is the problem I wish to deal with.

Investigations during the last few decades have brought hydrogen instead of carbon, and instead of CO2 water, the mother of all life, into the foreground.

When I received the Nobel Prize, the only big lump sum of money I have ever seen, I had to do something with it. The easiest way to drop this hot potato was to invest it, to buy shares. I knew that World War II was coming and I was afraid that if I had shares which rise in case of war, I would wish for war. So I asked my agent to buy shares which go down in the event of war. This he did. I lost my money and saved my soul.

It is impossible to encircle the hips of a girl with my right arm and hold her smile in my left hand, then proceed to study the two items separately. Similarly, we can not separate life from living matter, in order to study only living matter and its reactions. Inevitably, studying living matter and its reactions, we study life itself

Research is four things: brains with which to think, eyes with which to see, machines with which to measure and, fourth, money.

To regulate something always requires two opposing factors. You cannot regulate by a single factor. To give an example, the traffic in the streets could not be controlled by a green light or a red light alone. It needs a green light and a red light as well. The ratio between retine and promine determines whether there is any motion, any growth, or not. Two different inclinations have to be there in readiness to make the cells proliferate.

I called it ignose, not knowing which carbohydrate it was. This name was turned down by my editor. 'God-nose' was not more successful, so in the end 'hexuronic acid' was agreed upon. To-day the substance is called 'ascorbic acid' and I will use this name.

A substance that makes you ill if you don't eat it.

This oxidation of hydrogen in stages seems to be one of the basic principles of biological oxidation.

Senescent judges show how patriotic they are by passing out hard sentences for tearing up a draft card or following one's conscience according to the principles established by our country at the Nuremburg trials.

I am the son of a small and far-away nation and the other laureates have all come from different countries from all over the world and we all were equally received here with signs of sympathy.

This paper of yours is so lightly written that you must have sweated terribly.

"This celebration here tells me that this work is not hopeless. I thank you for this teaching with all my heart and lift my glass to human solidarity, to the ultimate victory of knowledge, peace, good-will and understanding."