Quotes from Voyage Through Time: Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize

Ahmed H. Zewail ·  304 pages

Rating: (254 votes)


“When I was a child, I thought of my Delta town as the center of the

universe, but now I realize how little I know about the universe. As a

child, I thought I was immortal, but now I recognize how limited a time

we all have. As a child, success meant scoring A on every exam, but

now I take it to mean good health, close family and friends, achieve-

ments in my work, and helping others.”
― Ahmed H. Zewail, quote from Voyage Through Time: Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize


“I don't know all the reasons for these achievements, but I know that I love what I do and I have never wanted to rest on my laurels.”
― Ahmed H. Zewail, quote from Voyage Through Time: Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize


“Perhaps the most valuable thing he taught me (his father) was

that there is no contradiction between devotion to work and enjoyment

of life and people”
― Ahmed H. Zewail, quote from Voyage Through Time: Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize


“Interestingly, this was the only incident of blatant prejudice that I can

remember. But I am aware that such opinions exist in human beings, and

it's not a question of being Egyptian or being an Arab or being a Muslim.

One could be a Christian against a Jew or a Jew against a Christian, or a

white against a black, or a man against a woman. My philosophy is not

to let such attitudes stop me from what I want to do. I don't take it very

seriously, although as you can see, I remember the incident very well.

The point was I had to get on with my work and had to behave properly,

and in the process perhaps even change the opinion of these people. But

on the other hand, if I did nothing but complain and feel sorry for myself,

then I wouldn't get anywhere.”
― Ahmed H. Zewail, quote from Voyage Through Time: Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize


“in my first American

class—a freshman chemistry class during the 1969-70 academic year—

they looked at me as though I was supposed to be their nurse because

they were paying a stiff tuition. That's another concept I had to learn—

in American private schools we worked for them because they paid the

tuition, but in Egypt we were educating them.”
― Ahmed H. Zewail, quote from Voyage Through Time: Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize



“Egypt is the gift of the Nile, as the Greek historian Herodotus said many centuries ago, in about 450 BC.”
― Ahmed H. Zewail, quote from Voyage Through Time: Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize


“The prefix milli comes from Latin (and French for “thousandth”), micro and nano from Greek (for “small” and “dwarf respectively), and pico from Spanish (for “small”). Femto is Scandinavian, the root of the word for “fifteen” (femten)—nuclear physicists call a femtometer, the unit for the dimensions of atomic nuclei, a fermi. Attosecond, the next smaller unit, 10-18 second, uses a prefix also derived from Scandinavian, from the word for “eighteen.”
― Ahmed H. Zewail, quote from Voyage Through Time: Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize


About the author

Ahmed H. Zewail
Born place: in Egypt
Born date February 26, 1946
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