Carl Woese

"The ribosome is a remnant of an RNA world that existed before DNA and proteins."

"Evolution is not something that happened in the past; it is happening now and will happen in the future."

"Life has an elegance and economy that suggests deep principles at work."

"The study of microbial life has overturned many of our assumptions about biology."

"Life is not the exception to the rules of chemistry and physics; it is a consequence of them."

"To classify organisms, you must understand what they truly are at the deepest level."

"Molecular evolution is the key to understanding all of evolution."

"Life is a network, not a hierarchy; everything is connected to everything else."

"The history of life is the history of increasing complexity arising from increasing simplicity."

"To understand the present, you must understand the past; to understand the past, you must understand molecules."

"Life is not determined by its parts but by the organization of its parts."

"The genetic code is nearly universal, a smoking gun for the common ancestry of all life."

"Evolution produces design without a designer, complexity without a plan."

"Life is the most complex phenomenon that follows from the simplest principles."

"To understand life, you must embrace both its unity and its diversity."

"The molecules of life are beautiful in their structure and elegant in their function."

"Life did not arise on Earth; it arose from Earth, from the elements, from chemistry itself."

"The study of evolution is the study of how life creates itself anew with each generation."

"All organisms are related; all life is one; all evolution is one story."

"To be a biologist is to marvel at the unity and diversity of life."

"Life is a process of organization imposed on matter by information."

"The tree of life connects us to all other organisms; we are not separate from nature but part of it."

"Molecular biology has shown us that life operates according to principles as universal as the laws of physics."

"Life is ancient, interconnected, diverse, and fundamentally unified."

"To understand life is to understand how information is stored, transmitted, and expressed."

"Evolution is both fact and mechanism; it is what life does and how it does it."

"The study of life teaches us humility in the face of nature's creativity and power."

"Life is the universe become conscious of itself, organized matter aware of its own existence."

"All life shares a common ancestor; all life is related by descent with modification."

"The molecules that make up your body have been recycled through millions of other organisms."