Explore Quotes by George Wald

A scientist lives with all reality. There is nothing better.

I tell my students to try to know molecules, so well that when they have some question involving molecules, they can ask themselves, What would I do if I were that molecule?

To know reality is to accept it, and eventually to love it.

I am growing old, and my future, so to speak, is already behind me.

In fact, death seems to have been a rather late invention in evolution. One can go a long way in evolution before encountering an authentic corpse.

Since we have had a history, men have pursued an ideal of immortality.

The only point of government is to safeguard and foster life.

We have to get rid of those nuclear weapons.

The trouble with most of the things that people want is that they get them.

I have lived much of my life among molecules. They are good company.

As far as I know, the most conservative estimates of the number of Americans who would be killed in a major nuclear attack, with everything working as well as can be hoped and all foreseeable precautions taken, run to about fifty million.

It's not good enough to give it tender, loving care, to supply it with breakfast foods, to buy it expensive educations. Those things don't mean anything unless this generation has a future. And we're not sure that it does.

The concept of war crimes is an American invention.

I think all of you know there is no adequate defense against massive nuclear attack.

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.

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.

The only use for an atomic bomb is to keep somebody else from using one.

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.

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.

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.

All War Departments are now Defense Departments. This is all part of the doubletalk of our time. The aggressor is always on the other side.