Living beings are made of organic and inorganic substances. According to the complexity of their molecules how can each of those substances be classified?
Inorganic substances, like water, mineral salts, molecular oxygen and carbon dioxide, are small molecules made of few atoms. Organic substances, in general, like glucose, fatty acids and proteins, are much more complex molecules made of sequences of carbons bound in carbon chains. The capacity of carbon to form chains is one of the main chemical facts that permitted the emergence of life on the planet.