Ahmed Zewail Quotes

Ahmed Zewail

Profession : Scientist

Birth : February 26, 1946

Despite differences of faith or even the occasional collisions between them, Egypt is united.

Ahmed Zewail

I am not one of the new media experts working all the time with my computers and the PowerPoints and things of that sort.

Ahmed Zewail

Curiosity - the rover and the concept - is what science is all about: the quest to reveal the unknown.

Ahmed Zewail

The soft power of science has the potential to reshape global diplomacy.

Ahmed Zewail

Higher education should be based on quality, not quantity; receive merit-based funding; and be free of unnecessary bureaucracy. Not the least of the benefits of educational reform is to foster the pride of achievement at national and international levels.

Ahmed Zewail

There is no 'master plan' on the road to the Nobel Prize. It represents a lot of hard work, a passion for that work and... being in the right place at the right time. For me, that place was Caltech.

Ahmed Zewail

As a boy, it was clear that my inclinations were toward the physical sciences. Mathematics, mechanics, and chemistry were among the fields that gave me a special satisfaction.

Ahmed Zewail

In today's world, America's soft power is commonly thought to reside in the global popularity of Hollywood movies, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Starbucks.

Ahmed Zewail

Egypt does not possess rich natural resources. Its agricultural area is relatively small - less than 10 per cent of the total land. Its growth relies on tourism, Suez Canal tariffs, and foreign investment.

Ahmed Zewail

I discovered how science is truly a universal language, one that forges new connections among individuals and opens the mind to ideas that go far beyond the classroom.

Ahmed Zewail

It turns out all molecular and biological systems have speeds of the atoms move inside them; the fastest possible speeds are determined by their molecular vibrations, and this speed is about a kilometre per second.

Ahmed Zewail

The Muslim Brotherhood and the Salifist parties are a real force in the Egyptian society.

Ahmed Zewail

We must nurture creative scientists in an environment that encourages interactions and collaborations across different fields, and support research free from weighty bureaucracies.

Ahmed Zewail

Investing in science education and curiosity-driven research is investing in the future.

Ahmed Zewail

I'd rather have the influence than the power, and the influence to me is to build institutions of independence and democracy, to regain for Egypt prestige in education and science and technology.

Ahmed Zewail

When I was a boy in Desuq, Egypt, a city on the Rosetta branch of the Nile, about 50 miles east of Alexandria, my family lived steps away from the local landmark, a mosque named for a 13th-century Sufi sheik.

Ahmed Zewail

A femtosecond is comparable to one second in 32 million years. It is like watching a 32-million-year movie to see one second.

Ahmed Zewail

When Mohamed Morsi was elected president of Egypt in 2012, many in the country, including me, were hopeful that he would become a democratic president for all Egyptians - not only for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Ahmed Zewail

In the 1970s, what I, as a young foreign student studying in the United States, found most dynamic, exciting and impressive about this country is what much of the world continues to value most about the U.S. today: its open intellectual culture, its great universities, its capacity for discovery and innovation.

Ahmed Zewail

Some leaders think time will solve the problem. Their hope is that Assad's regime will ultimately fall from the heavy toll of the horrors it has spawned. From past experience with such regimes, this scenario is unlikely to happen.

Ahmed Zewail