Cells Quotes

Let man reawake and consider what he is compared with the reality of things; regard himself lost in this remote corner of Nature; and from the tiny cell where he lodges, to wit the Universe, weigh at their true worth earth, kingdoms, towns, himself. What is a man face to face with infinity?

You know the theory of cell irritability? If you take an amoeba cell and poke it a thousand times, it will change and then re-form into its original shape. And then, the thousandth time you poke this amoeba, the cell will completely collapse and become nothing. That’s kind of what it’s like being famous. People say hi, how are you doing, and after the thousandth time, you just get angry; you really pop.

Well, the American public always wanted to vote for a guy — and Bush was the perfect guy — who they’d want to have over for pot-roast. And George Bush is that guy. He does that well. You’d like to have him over for pot-roast. He reminds you of yourself. Okay. Well, now he’s been over, he’s had the pot-roast. But he’s getting drunk and now he’s talking about stem cells and Terri Schiavo and gay marriage. And now he’s the guest that won’t leave.

Disassemble the cells of a sponge (by passing them through a sieve, for instance), then dump them into a solution, and they will find their way back together and build themselves into a sponge again. You can do this to them over and over, and they will doggedly reassemble because, like you and me and every other living thing, they have one overwhelming impulse: to continue to be.

Everything is grounded in mystery. Everything is swimming, and the stable does not exist. Life is a series of guesses, and there is mystery in a match. The commonplace is the habitual, and the habitual is a mystery that has grown stale from sense-insistence. Life undulates; there is no such thing as a level; a straight line is a myth, and all directions are indirections.

This act is as horrible as killing a cancer cell. It must be done for the sake of the future of the whole. So be it: be prepared for the selection process which is now beginning. We, the elders, have been patiently waiting until the very last moment before the quantum transformation, to take action to cut out this corrupted and corrupting element in the body of humanity. It is like watching a cancer grow; something must be done before the whole body is destroyed… The destructive one fourth must be eliminated from the social body.

My all-time favorite topic in positive psychology is the study of positive emotions. I’m fascinated by how pleasant experiences, which can be so subtle and fleeting, can add up over time to change who we become. I’m especially excited these days about investigating how positive emotions change the very ways that our cells form and function to keep us healthy.