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
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.
Interpretation
Caring for the current generation is crucial, but their future must also be secured.
In this quote, George Wald emphasizes that providing material support and nurturing to the younger generation is insufficient if their future is uncertain. He stresses the importance of creating a sustainable environment and opportunities for them to thrive, warning that without a focus on the future, all efforts may ultimately be in vain.
In practice
This quote can inspire discussions at educational conferences about the importance of sustainable practices in schools.
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!
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.
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.
We men of study, whose heads are in our books, have need to be straightly looked after! We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.
Scoutcraft is a means through which the veriest hooligan can be brought to higher thought and to the elements of faith in God; and, coupled with the Scout's obligation to do a good turn every day, it gives the base of Duty to God and to Neighbour on which the parent or pastor can build with greater ease the form of belief that is desired.
We should spend less time at universities filling our students' minds with content by lecturing at them, and more time igniting their creativity … by actually talking with them.
When someone says to me, 'I love your book - I read it in a day,' I want to tell them to go back and read it again.
I never had a black teacher or lecturer, I never once met a black British person who held any sort of professional or managerial role.
I do think that a minister who can preach a sermon without addressing sinners does not know how to preach.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.