Karl Barry Sharpless quotes

“We have a word game in English called "Twenty questions." To play Twenty Questions, one player imagines some object, and the other players must guess what it is by asking questions that can be answered with a "yes" or a "no." I imagine every language has a similar game, and, for those of us who speak the language of science, the game is called The Scientific Method.”
-- Karl Barry Sharpless

Source : Speech at the Nobel Banquet, www.nobelprize.org. December 10, 2001.

#Player Quotes #Asking Questions Quotes #Games Quotes

“when I started doing chemistry, I did it the way I fished - for the excitement, the discovery, the adventure, for going after the most elusive catch imaginable in uncharted seas.”
-- Karl Barry Sharpless

Source : Nobel Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. December 08, 2001.

#Adventure Quotes #Discovery Quotes #Sea Quotes

“The discipline, nonetheless, is exacting: everything that can be observed should be observed, even if it is only recalled as the bland background from which the intriguing bits pop out like Venus in the evening sky. The goal is always finding something new, hopefully unimagined and, better still, hitherto unimaginable.”
-- Karl Barry Sharpless

Source : "Searching for New Reactivity". Nobel Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. December 08, 2001.

#Sky Quotes #Discipline Quotes #Goal Quotes

“What the ocean was to the child, the Periodic Table is to the chemist.”
-- Karl Barry Sharpless

Source : Nobel lecture, 2001.

#Children Quotes #Ocean Quotes #Tables Quotes

“My music lives because of real players.”

Source : "Golden Globe Nominee Abel Korzeniowski Talks Madonna, ‘W.E.,’ Score" by Bill Desowitz, www.indiewire.com. January 11, 2012.

“I can't be a hypocrite as a coach because as a player that's what I wanted. I wanted feedback, I wanted communication from the boss. I showed up for work, you can yell at me if you want, but I want input. So that's the kind of coach I want to be.”

“We are closer to God when we are asking questions than when we think we have the answers.”

Source : "SQ : Connecting with Our Spiritual Intelligence". Book by Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall, 2000.

“The first time I had a secretary, I was sheepish about being demanding or even asking questions.”

Source : "Power? Thanks, but I’d Rather Have Influence". Interview with Adam Bryant, www.nytimes.com. June 4, 2011.

“I define coaching as launching the salesperson on a voyage of discovery by asking questions.”

“Hugh returned from his trip, and days later I still sounded like a Red Chinese asking questions about the democratic hinterlands. "And you actually saw people smoking in restaurants? Really! And offices, too? Oh, tell me again about the ashtrays in the hospital waiting room, and don't leave anything out."”

“The gods have fled, I know. My sense is the gods have always been essentially absent. I do not believe human beings have played games or sports from the beginning merely to summon or to please or to appease the gods. If anthropologists and historians believe that, it is because they believe whatever they have been able to recover about what humankind told the gods humankind was doing. I believe we have played games, and watched games, to imitate the gods, to become godlike in our worship of eachother and, through those moments of transmutation, to know for an instant what the gods know.”

“The rule of the game was never assume that anybody, however honorable, would be able to stand up under torture. If Mr. X, who knew where I was, was caught for some reason, I should move.”

Source : "To Save a Life: Stories of Holocaust Rescue" edited by Ellen Land-Weber, Part I, Holland, Ch. 1, (p. 48), 2000.

“You're a trivial part in a trivia game. Now what's your aim? A presidential campaign? Like Ross Perot? He lost it though... But he got a billion in tha bank fo' sho'!”

“For every young person living on the streets tonight, there are many at home zoning out inside their homes through video games, and even more who disengage from school. These are direct effects of internalized discrimination based on their age.”