Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen, and thinking what nobody has thought.”

“Investigations during the last few decades have brought hydrogen instead of carbon, and instead of CO2 water, the mother of all life, into the foreground.”

“This oxidation of hydrogen in stages seems to be one of the basic principles of biological oxidation.”

“Water is life's matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.”

“A vitamin is a substance that makes you ill if you don't eat it.”

“The foodstuff, carbohydrate, is essentially a packet of hydrogen, a hydrogen supplier, a hydrogen donor, and the main event during its combustion is the splitting off of hydrogen.”

“I am the son of a small and far-away nation and the other laureates have all come from different countries from all over the world and we all were equally received here with signs of sympathy.”

“Without energy life would be extinguished instantaneously, and the cellular fabric would collapse.”

“The source of this energy is the sun's radiation.”

“The real scientist is ready to bear privation and, if need be, starvation rather than let anyone dictate to him which direction his work must take.”

“A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.”

“Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought.”

“Research is four things: brains with which to think, eyes with which to see, machines with which to measure and, fourth, money.”

“This celebration here tells me that this work is not hopeless. I thank you for this teaching with all my heart and lift my glass to human solidarity, to the ultimate victory of knowledge, peace, good-will and understanding.”

“So I set out to study the oxidation system in the potato, which, if damaged, causes the plant to turn brown. I did this in the hope of discovering, through these studies, the key to the understanding of adrenal function.”

“Whatever man does he must do first in his mind.”

“Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen, and thinking what nobody else has thought.”

“A living cell requires energy not only for all its functions, but also for the maintenance of its structure.”

“Here we stand in the middle of this new world with our primitive brain, attuned to the simple cave life, with terrific forces at our disposal, which we are clever enough to release, but whose consequences we cannot comprehend.”