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
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“He wanted to stay there forever, letting her soothe him, pretending he was just a kid and his mom could make everything okay.”
― Suzanne Collins, quote from Gregor and the Code of Claw


“It was at such moments that for an instant he ceased to be a reasoning machine and betrayed his human love for admiration and applause. The same singularly proud and reserved nature which turned away with disdain from popular notoriety was capable of being moved to its depth by spontaneous wonder and praise from a friend.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Return of Sherlock Holmes


“Every day of their lives they read the newspapers and went to the movies. Both fed them on lynchings, murder, sex crimes, explosions, wrecks, love nests, fires, miracles, revolutions, war. This daily diet made sophisticates of them. The sun is a joke. Oranges can't titillate their jaded palates. Nothing can ever be violent enough to make taut their slack minds and bodies. They have been cheated and betrayed. They have slaved and saved for nothing. Tod”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust


“That before-and-after-feel, as though this was going to be the end of one time and the beginning of another.”
― Elizabeth Haynes, quote from Into the Darkest Corner


“You’ve gone back to the way you used to be before. The way you promised you’d never be again.”
― Sophie Kinsella, quote from Shopaholic and Sister


Interesting books

The Hook Up
(35.3K)
The Hook Up
by Kristen Callihan
The Last Star
(42.5K)
The Last Star
by Rick Yancey
Half Upon a Time
(4.9K)
Half Upon a Time
by James Riley
The Mime Order
(14.9K)
The Mime Order
by Samantha Shannon
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing
(159.1K)
The Life-Changing Ma...
by Marie Kondō
The Palace of Dreams
(2K)
The Palace of Dreams
by Ismail Kadare

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.