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.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Categorized in : Science Real Nature

Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

discovery science thinking

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.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

water-of-life dancing mother

In every culture and in every medical tradition before ours, healing was accomplished by moving energy.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

health healing moving

A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

congratulations creativity inspirational

Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

creativity learning wisdom

Think boldly. Don't be afraid of making mistakes. Don't miss small details, keep your eyes open and be modest in everything except your aims.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

eye mistake life

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.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

simple clever life

A living cell requires energy not only for all its functions, but also for the maintenance of its structure.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

maintenance cells energy

Water is life's matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

ice-water water-of-life mother

The source of this energy is the sun's radiation.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

radiation energy sun

If structure does not tell us anything about function, it means that we have not looked at it correctly.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

function doe mean

Life is water, dancing to the tune of solids.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

dancing life science

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.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

discovery science knowledge

Through the ages, man's main concern was life after death. Today, for the first time, we find we must ask questions about whether there will be life before death.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

life science death

Knowledge is a sacred cow, and my problem will be how we can milk her while keeping clear of her horns.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

milk cows knowledge

The American Cancer Society tried to ruin my research foundation.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

cancer age dark

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.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

cells light science

[A vitamin is] a substance you get sick from if you don't eat it.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

vitamins sick substance

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

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

girl life hands

I am not religious, but I am a pious man... A religious man has a definite religion. He says "God is there" or "God is there," "God is there." "Your god is not my god, and that's all." But the pious man, he just looks out with awe, and says, "where is God?" And "well, I don't understand it and I would like to know what this creation really means." That is a pious man, who is really touched by the greatness of nature and of the creation.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

greatness religious mean