Albert Szent-Györgyi Quotes
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If any student comes to me and says he wants to be useful to mankind and go into research to alleviate human suffering, I advise him to go into charity instead. Research wants real egotists who seek their own pleasure and satisfaction, but find it in solving the puzzles of nature.
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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.
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'Research is to see what everybody has seen and think what nobody has thought.'
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"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."
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The real scientist is ready to bear privation and, if need be, starvation rather than let anyone dictate to him which direction his work must take.
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Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different.
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Life is water, dancing to the tune of macro molecules.
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Nature is one. It is not divided into physics, chemistry, quantum mechanics.
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Research is four things: brains with which to think, eyes with which to see, machines with which to measure and, fourth, money.
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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.
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This paper of yours is so lightly written that you must have sweated terribly.
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The American Cancer Society tried to ruin my research foundation.
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A living cell requires energy not only for all its functions, but also for the maintenance of its structure.
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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.
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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
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In every culture and in every medical tradition before ours, healing was accomplished by moving energy.
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Here we stand in the middle of this new world with our primitive brain, attuned to the simple cave life, with terrific forces at our disposal, which we are clever enough to release, but whose consequences we cannot comprehend.
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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?
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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.
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A vitamin is a substance you get sick from if you don't eat it.
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Water, the Hub of Life. Water is its mater and matrix, mother and medium. Water is the most extraordinary substance! Practically all its properties are anomolous, which enabled life to use it as building material for its machinery. Life is water dancing to the tune of solids.
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We are all but recent leaves on the same old tree of life and if this life has adapted itself to new functions and conditions, it uses the same old basic principles over and over again. There is no real difference between the grass and the man who mows it.
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Knowledge is a sacred cow, and my problem will be how we can milk her while keeping clear of her horns.
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A substance that makes you ill if you don't eat it.