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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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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
Trouble
Things
People

More quotes by George Wald

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We have to get rid of those nuclear weapons.
George Wald
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About two million years ago, man appeared. He has become the dominant species on the earth. All other living things, animal and plant, live by his sufferance. He is the custodian of life on earth, and in the solar system. It's a big responsibility.
George Wald
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We living things are a late outgrowth of the metabolism of our galaxy. The carbon that enters into our composition was cooked in a remote past in a dying star. The waters of ancient seas set the pattern of ions in our blood. The ancient atmospheres moulded our metabolism.
George Wald
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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
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We are living in a world in which all wars are wars of defense.
George Wald
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A peacetime draft is the most un-American thing I know.
George Wald
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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.
George Wald
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Most modern biologists, having reviewed with satisfaction the downfall of the spontaneous generation hypothesis, yet unwilling to accept the alternative belief in special creation, are left with nothing.
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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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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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
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So-called defense now absorbs sixty per cent of the national budget, and about twelve per cent of the Gross National Product.
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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Since we have had a history, men have pursued an ideal of immortality.
George Wald
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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
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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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The only point of government is to safeguard and foster 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
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We are the products of editing, rather than of authorship.
George Wald
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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