Famous quotes containing the words american, planetary and/or scientist:
“Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the grand-daughter of slaves. It fails to register depression with me. Slavery is sixty years in the past. The operation was successful and the patient is doing well, thank you. The terrible struggle that made me an American out of a potential slave said “On the line!” The Reconstruction said “Go!” I am off to a flying start and I must not halt in the stretch to look behind and weep.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“We cannot cheat on DNA. We cannot get round photosynthesis. We cannot say I am not going to give a damn about phytoplankton. All these tiny mechanisms provide the preconditions of our planetary life. To say we do not care is to say in the most literal sense that “we choose death.””
—Barbara Ward (1914–1981)
“Well, it seems to me a scientist has need for both vision and confidence.”
—Harry Essex (b. 1910)