"Water is life's matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water"
About this Quote
Coming from a scientist best known for work on vitamin C and cellular processes, the quote reads like a quiet rebuke to the tendency to treat life as a magical spark. “Matrix” and “medium” are lab words: the solvent, the environment, the scaffold where reactions happen, shapes form, proteins fold, membranes hold. He’s steering the listener toward a materialist awe: water’s weird properties - polarity, heat capacity, ability to dissolve and transport molecules - are not background details but the stage directions for metabolism itself.
The subtext is also cultural. Mid-20th-century science was increasingly obsessed with isolated parts: enzymes, pathways, later DNA. Szent-Gyorgyi pushes back with a systems instinct, insisting that life is inseparable from its context. The final sentence lands like a scientific koan, absolute on purpose. It strips away the romantic wiggle room: no metaphors about “dry life,” no philosophical exceptions. If you want to talk about life - on Earth or elsewhere - start with the medium that makes “alive” physically possible.
Quote Details
| Topic | Life |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Szent-Gyorgyi, Albert. (2026, January 15). Water is life's matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/water-is-lifes-matter-and-matrix-mother-and-29663/
Chicago Style
Szent-Gyorgyi, Albert. "Water is life's matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/water-is-lifes-matter-and-matrix-mother-and-29663/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Water is life's matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/water-is-lifes-matter-and-matrix-mother-and-29663/. Accessed 9 Feb. 2026.









