George Wald

I am growing old, and my future, so to speak, is already behind me. ”

The thought that we're in competition with Russians or with Chinese is all a mistake, and trivial. We are one species, with a world to win. ”

There's life all over this universe, but the only life in the solar system is on earth, and in the whole universe we are the only men. ”

It would be a poor thing to be an atom in a universe without physicists, and physicists are made of atoms. A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms. ”

The trouble with most of the things that people want is that they get them. ”

We have fallen in love with the body. That's that thing that looks back at us from the mirror. That's the repository of that lovely identity that you keep chasing all your life. ”

To know reality is to accept it, and eventually to love it. ”

I tell my students to try early in life to find an unattainable objective. ”

You see, every creature alive on the earth today represents an unbroken line of life that stretches back to the first primitive organism to appear on this planet; and that is about three billion years. ”

I have lived much of my life among molecules. They are good company. ”