"Israel Moiseevich saw harmony in any science. Probably, the most correct word about Gelfand is harmony. One had to see how Gelfand experienced, or "lived through" science; the same way he lived through classical music, and literature, and art, and a conversation with a five-year old child. And of course, people. All this was one, a whole for him. Israel Moiseevich did not divide everything into: work-- rest; science-- art; mathematics-- biology. Life is whole, and this is what he taught us. And this is amazingly right."