469 Quotes About Cells

TP53 seems to encode the greater good, like a suicide pill in the mouth of a soldier that dissolves only when it detects evidence that he is about to mutiny.

The extracellular genesis of cells in animals seemed to me, ever since the publication of the cell theory [of Schwann], just as unlikely as the spontaneous generation of organisms. These doubts produced my observations on the multiplication of blood cells by division in bird and mammalian embryos and on the division of muscle bundles in frog larvae. Since then I have continued these observations in frog larvae, where it is possible to follow the history of tissues back to segmentation.

The cause of nutrition and growth resides not in the organism as a whole but in the separate elementary parts—the cells.

Were it not for the melanin in our skin, myoglobin in our muscles and haemoglobin in our blood, we would be the colour of mitochondria. And, if this were so, we would change colour when we exercised or ran out of breath, so that you could tell how energized someone was from his or her colour.

The cells in your body are completely loyal to you; they work for you in harmony. We can even say they pray to you. You are their God. That is absolutely the truth. Now what are you going to do with this knowledge?

We will never understand, if we do not understand the cells within us.

Life is what places a border between the chaos and the order and extends it in the favor of the latter. Anything else is predestined to crumble in the face of the time, the ever devouring father.

Cells play their role and die. Then new cells are formed. Cells that don’t die cause cancer. It's important for cells to die on time.

your atoms don't actually care about you - indeed, don't even know that you are there. They don't even know that they are there. They are mindless particles, after all and not even themselves alive. (It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which would have ever been alive but all of which had once been you.)