Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
Albert Szent-Györgyi de Nagyrápoltwas a Hungarian American physiologist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937. He is credited with discovering vitamin C and the components and reactions of the citric acid cycle. He was also active in the Hungarian Resistance during World War II and entered Hungarian politics after the war...
NationalityHungarian
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth16 September 1893
chemistry physics mechanic
Nature is one. It is not divided into physics, chemistry, quantum mechanics.
sick vitamins substance
[A vitamin is] a substance you get sick from if you don't eat it.
hydrogen principles stage
This oxidation of hydrogen in stages seems to be one of the basic principles of biological oxidation.
discovery two judging
A discovery must be, by definition, at variance with existing knowledge. During my lifetime, I made two. Both were rejected offhand by the popes of the field. Had I predicted these discoveries in my applications, and had those authorities been my judges, it is evident what their decisions would have been.
lying home night
I always tried to live up to Leo Szilard's commandment, "don't lie if you don't have to." I had to. I filled up pages with words and plans I knew I would not follow. When I go home from my laboratory in the late afternoon, I often do not know what I am going to do the next day. I expect to think that up during the night. How could I tell them what I would do a year hence?
knowledge successful editors
I called it ignose, not knowing which carbohydrate it was. This name was turned down by my editor. 'God-nose' was not more successful, so in the end 'hexuronic acid' was agreed upon. To-day the substance is called 'ascorbic acid' and I will use this name.
work real bears
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.
knowledge simple research
If I go out into nature, into the unknown, to the fringes of knowledge, everything seems mixed up and contradictory, illogical, and incoherent. This is what research does; it smooths out contradictions and makes things simple, logical, and coherent.
thank-you teaching heart
"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."
money fear war
When I received the Nobel Prize, the only big lump sum of money I have ever seen, I had to do something with it. The easiest way to drop this hot potato was to invest it, to buy shares. I knew that World War II was coming and I was afraid that if I had shares which rise in case of war, I would wish for war. So I asked my agent to buy shares which go down in the event of war. This he did. I lost my money and saved my soul.
religious mean greatness
I am not religious, but I am a pious man... A religious man has a definite religion. He says "God is there" or "God is there," "God is there." "Your god is not my god, and that's all." But the pious man, he just looks out with awe, and says, "where is God?" And "well, I don't understand it and I would like to know what this creation really means." That is a pious man, who is really touched by the greatness of nature and of the creation.
disease vitamins substance
A substance that makes you ill if you don't eat it.
cancer dark age
The American Cancer Society tried to ruin my research foundation.
would-be fabric energy
Without energy life would be extinguished instantaneously, and the cellular fabric would collapse.