Albert Szent-Gyorgyi Quotes

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.

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

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

So I set out to study the oxidation system in the potato, which, if damaged, causes the plant to turn brown. I did this in the hope of discovering, through these studies, the key to the understanding of adrenal function.

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

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

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?

Research is not a systematic occupation but an intuitive artistic vocation.

Without energy life would be extinguished instantaneously, and the cellular fabric would collapse.

Life is a wondrous phenomenon.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Nature is one. It is not divided into physics, chemistry, quantum mechanics.

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.

The American Cancer Society tried to ruin my research foundation.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

The foodstuff, carbohydrate, is essentially a packet of hydrogen, a hydrogen supplier, a hydrogen donor, and the main event during its combustion is the splitting off of hydrogen.

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.

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought.

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.