A peacetime draft is the most un-American thing I know. George Wald More Quotes by George Wald More Quotes From George Wald We've committed many war crimes in Vietnam - but I'll tell you something interesting about that. We were committing war crimes in World War II, before the Nuremberg trials were held and the principle of war crimes was stated. George Wald principles war interesting There is nothing worth having that can he obtained by nuclear war - nothing material or ideological - no tradition that it can defend. It is utterly self-defeating. George Wald nuclear self war A scientist should be the happiest of men. Not that science isn't serious; but as everyone knows, being serious is one way of being happy, just as being gay is one way of being unhappy. George Wald gay science knowledge Our challenge is to give what account we can of what becomes of life in the solar system, this corner of the universe that is our home; and, most of all, what becomes of men-all men, of all nations, colors, and creeds. This has become one world, a world for all men. It is only such a world that can now offer us life, and the chance to go on. George Wald home men science Not all living creatures die. An amoeba, for example, need never die; it need not even, like certain generals, fade away. It just divides and becomes two new amoebas. George Wald life science death Four elements, Hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, also provide an example of the astonishing togetherness of our universe. They make up the "organic" molecules that constitute living organisms on a planet, and the nuclei of these same elements interact to generate the light of its star. Then the organisms on the planet come to depend wholly on that starlight, as they must if life is to persist. So it is that all life on the Earth runs on sunlight. [Referring to photosynthesis] George Wald stars running life There was a golden period that I look back upon with great regret, in which the cheapest of experimental animals were medical students. Graduate students were even better. In the old days, if you offered a graduate student a thiamine-deficient diet, he gladly went on it, for that was the only way he could eat. Science is getting to be more and more difficult. George Wald regret animal science I tell my students, with a feeling of pride that I hope they will share, that the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen that make up ninety-nine per cent of our living substance were cooked in the deep interiors of earlier generations of dying stars. Gathered up from the ends of the universe, over billions of years, eventually they came to form, in part, the substance of our sun, its planets, and ourselves. Three billion years ago, life arose upon the earth. It is the only life in the solar system. George Wald stars life science We are living in a world in which all wars are wars of defense. George Wald war life science I think if a physician wrote on a death certificate that old age was the cause of death, he'd be thrown out of the union. There is always some final event, some failure of an organ, some last attack of pneumonia, that finishes off a life. No one dies of old age. George Wald life science thinking 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. George Wald life science years A lecture is much more of a dialogue than many of you probably realize. George Wald lectures realizing realization A scientist lives with all reality. There is nothing better. To know reality is to accept it, and eventually to love it. George Wald science reality knowledge I think all of you know there is no adequate defense against massive nuclear attack. George Wald nuclear defense thinking I am growing old, and my future, so to speak, is already behind me. George Wald my-future growing speak We have to get rid of those nuclear weapons. George Wald nuclear-weapons nuclear weapons 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. George Wald solar-system earth men The trouble with most of the things that people want is that they get them. George Wald trouble want people [Attributing the origin of life to spontaneous generation.] However improbable we regard this event, it will almost certainly happen at least once.... The time... is of the order of two billion years.... Given so much time, the "impossible" becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One only has to wait: time itself performs the miracles. George Wald origin-of-life order science Since we have had a history, men have pursued an ideal of immortality. George Wald pursued immortality men
