Alexis Carrel
Alexis Carrel
Alexis Carrelwas a French surgeon and biologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912 for pioneering vascular suturing techniques. He invented the first perfusion pump with Charles A. Lindbergh opening the way to organ transplantation. Like many intellectuals before World War II he promoted eugenics. He was a regent for the French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems during Vichy France which implemented the eugenics policies there; his association with the Foundation and with...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth28 June 1873
CountryFrance
The secret of life is to be found in life itself, in the full organic, intellectual and spiritual activities of our body.
If the doctor of today does not become the dietician of tomorrow, the dietician of today will become the doctor of tomorrow.
Intelligence is almost useless to the person whose only quality it is.
To accomplish our destiny it is not enough to merely guard prudently against road accidents. We must also cover before nightfall the distance assigned to each of us.
Prayer is a cry of distress, a demand for help, a hymn of love.
Everyone makes a greater effort to hurt other people than to help himself.
Like hatred, jealousy is forbidden by the laws of life because it is essentially destructive.
The best way of increasing the [average] intelligence of scientists would be to reduce their number.
It seems that the increased number of scientific workers, their being split up into groups whose studies are limited to a small subject, and over-specialization have brought about a shrinking of intelligence. There is no doubt that the quality of any human group decreases when the number of the individuals composing this group increases beyond certain limits... The best way to increase the intelligence of scientists would be to decrease their number.
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.
As to virtue . . . it is an act of the will, a habit which increases the quantity, intensity and quality of life. It builds up, strengthens and vivifies personality.
Life leaps like a geyser for those willing to drill through the rock of inertia.
Science has to be understood in its broadest sense, as a method for apprehending all observable reality, and not merely as an instrument for acquiring specialized knowledge.
More than half of all great remedies known to medical history have come from empiricists...'irregulars'...of no or little scientific training. There is no reason to believe that conditions have essentially changed.