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.
Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future.
[T]he more clamour we make about 'the women's point of view', the more we rub it into people that the women's point of view is different, and frankly I do not think it is -- at least in my job. The line I always want to take is, that there is the 'point of view' of the reasonably enlightened human brain, and that this is the aspect of the matter which I am best fitted to uphold.
Any idea of a United India could never have worked and in my judgment it would have led us to terrific disaster.
Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward.
I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side.
Human beings are never to be treated as a means but always as ends.
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