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.
George WaldRead
Our challenge is to give what account we can of what becomes of life in the solar system, this corner of the universe that is our home; and, most of all, what becomes of men-all men, of all nations, colors, and creeds. This has become one world, a world for all men. It is only such a world that can now offer us life, and the chance to go on.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the unity of humanity and the importance of caring for our shared planet.
George Wald highlights the interconnectedness of all people and nations, urging us to consider our collective responsibility toward life in the universe and each other. He suggests that only by recognizing ourselves as one global community can we ensure our survival and growth as a species.
In practice
In a speech on Earth Day, to promote global environmental stewardship.
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.
I have lived much of my life among molecules. They are good company. 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? I tell them, Try to feel like a molecule; and if you work hard, who knows? Some day you may get to feel like a big molecule!
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.
Nuclear weapons offer us nothing but a balance of terror, and a balance of terror is still terror.
I think if a physician wrote on a death certificate that old age was the cause of death, he'd be thrown out of the union. There is always some final event, some failure of an organ, some last attack of pneumonia, that finishes off a life. No one dies of old age.
Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.
Money is to Everything as an Aeroplane is to Australia. The aeroplane isn't Australia, but it remains the only practical way we know of reaching it. So perhaps, metonymically, the aeroplane is Australia after all.
It’s just like when you’ve got some coffee that’s too black, which means it’s too strong. What you do? You integrate it with cream; you make it weak. If you pour too much cream in, you won’t even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it’ll put you to sleep.
All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys.
Whether I am or am not a Communist is irrelevant. The question is whether American citizens, regardless of their political beliefs or sympathies, may enjoy their constitutional rights.
Why the hell are we conditioned into the smooth strawberry-and-cream Mother-Goose-world, Alice-in-Wonderland fable, only to be broken on the wheel as we grow older and become aware of ourselves as individuals with a dull responsibility in life?
Occasionally the conflict between 'what we stand for' and 'what we do' has been forthrightly addressed.
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