Perhaps I will stay in Chicago and operate on human beings instead of on dogs. From a business standpoint, it would be excellent. But, as I hate medical practice, I would like better to make little money in doing scientific work than a great deal in doing surgical operations.
— Alexis Carrel
The German government has taken energetic measures against the propagation of the defective, the mentally diseased, and the criminal.
Those who desire to rise as high as our human condition allows, must renounce intellectual pride, the omnipotence of clear thinking, belief in the absolute power of logic.
In man, the things which are not measurable are more important than those which are measurable.
The love of beauty in its multiple forms is the noblest gift of the human cerebrum.
Comforts and syphilis are the greatest enemies of mankind.
All of us, at certain moments of our lives, need to take advice and to receive help from other people.
All great men are gifted with intuition. They know without reasoning or analysis, what they need to know.
The first duty of society is to give each of its members the possibility of fulfilling his destiny. When it becomes incapable of performing this duty it must be transformed.
The difficulty of finding organs suitable for transplantation on man must be met.
The Asiatics and the Africans, such as the Russians, the Arabs, the Hindus, are increasing with marked rapidity. Never have the European races been in such great peril as today.
Science has to be understood in its broadest sense, as a method for comprehending all observable reality, and not merely as an instrument for acquiring specialized knowledge.
Like hatred, jealousy is forbidden by the laws of life because it is essentially destructive.
Religion brings to man an inner strength, spiritual light, and ineffable peace.
The quality of life is more important than life itself.
A few observation and much reasoning lead to error; many observations and a little reasoning to truth.
Life leaps like a geyser for those who drill through the rock of inertia.
Gigantic sums are now required to maintain prisons and insane asylums and protect the public against gangsters and lunatics. Why do we preserve these useless and harmful beings? The abnormal prevent development of the normal.
The atmosphere of libraries, lecture rooms and laboratories is dangerous to those who shut themselves up in them too long. It separates us from reality like a fog.
The most efficient way to live reasonably is every morning to make a plan of one's day and every night to examine the results obtained.
Hard conditions of life are indispensable to bringing out the best in human personality.
Everyone makes a greater effort to hurt other people than to help himself.
Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor.
Intuition comes very close to clairvoyance; it appears to be the extrasensory perception of reality.
To what extent is any given man morally responsible for any given act? We do not know.
