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

“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

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Popular quotes

“You can’t tell how high a kite can fly without being willing to let all the string out.”
― Ken Liu, quote from The Grace of Kings

“But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant—society collectively, over the separate individuals who compose it—its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.”
― John Stuart Mill, quote from On Liberty and Other Essays

“Any of these vultures smell weakness, and they’ll mess you up faster than sugar in a gas tank.”
― Eoin Colfer, quote from The Supernaturalist

“The complex order we now observe [in the universe] could *not* have been the result of any initial design built into the universe at the so-called creation. The universe preserves no record of what went on before the big bang. The Creator, if he existed, left no imprint. Thus he might as well have been nonexistent.”
― Victor J. Stenger, quote from God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist

“I decided that if I was worth anything as a person, I ought to be able to let her be with what it was she had to be with then: not urge her to fight it if she was tired of fighting, not ply her with hope, not make her think about who might be upset or worried, not ask anything of her, nothing, just be alive with her while she was still alive.”
― Roland Merullo, quote from A Little Love Story

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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.