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Evolution advances, not by a priori design, but by the selection of what works best out of whatever choices offer. We are the products of editing, rather than of authorship.

George Wald

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George Wald
Age: 90 †
Born: 1906
Born: November 18
Died: 1997
Died: April 12
Biochemist
Biologist
Chemist
Neuroscientist
Physician
Physiologist
Scientist
New York City
New York
Choices
Selection
Whatever
Editing
Rather
Offer
Science
Evolution
Best
Offers
Products
Priori
Works
Authorship
Design
Advances

More quotes by George Wald

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Since we have had a history, men have pursued an ideal of immortality.
George Wald
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A scientist is in a sense a learned small boy. There is something of the scientist in every small boy. Others must outgrow it. Scientists can stay that way all their lives.
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The only use for an atomic bomb is to keep somebody else from using one. It can give us no protection - only the doubtful satisfaction of retaliation...
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I have lived much of my life among molecules. They are good company.
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The Vietnamese have a secret weapon. It's their willingness to die beyond our willingness to kill. In effect, they've been saying, You can kill us, but you'll have to kill a lot of us you may have to kill all of us. And, thank heaven, we are not yet ready to do that.
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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.
George Wald
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I can conceive of no nightmare so terrifying as establishing communication with a so-called superior (or, if you wish, advanced) technology in outer space.
George Wald
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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
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The Nobel Prize is an honor unique in the world in having found its way into the hearts and minds of simple people everywhere. It casts a light of peace and reason upon us all and for that I am especially grateful.
George Wald
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We are the products of editing, rather than of authorship.
George Wald
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I think all of you know there is no adequate defense against massive nuclear attack.
George Wald
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The trouble with most of the things that people want is that they get them.
George Wald
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We are living in a world in which all wars are wars of defense.
George Wald
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I do not want to believe in God. Therefore I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation leading to evolution.
George Wald
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We have to get rid of those nuclear weapons.
George Wald
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One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are-as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation.
George Wald
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Nuclear weapons offer us nothing but a balance of terror, and a balance of terror is still terror.
George Wald
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Death seems to have been a rather late invention in evolution. One can go a long way in evolution before encountering an authentic corpse.
George Wald
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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.
George Wald
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Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.
George Wald