Sherwin B. Nuland
Sherwin B. Nuland
Sherwin Bernard Nulandwas an American surgeon and writer who taught bioethics, history of medicine, and medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, and occasionally bioethics and history of medicine at Yale College. His 1994 book How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter was a New York Times Best Seller and won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, as well as being a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth8 December 1930
CountryUnited States of America
certain depressed illness man notion recognize since spirits
You know, ever since man had any notion that some of his other people, his colleagues, could be different, could be strange, could be severely depressed or what we now recognize as schizophrenia, he was certain that this kind of illness had to come from evil spirits getting into the body.
achieve death event expression fact finality graceful last life nature ongoing repugnant sequence simply stark triumph universal yearning
'Death with dignity' is our society's expression of the universal yearning to achieve a graceful triumph over the stark and often repugnant finality of life's last sputterings. But the fact is, death is not a confrontation. It is simply an event in the sequence of nature's ongoing rhythms.
death disease exhausting force requires
Not death but disease is the real enemy; disease, the malign force that requires confrontation. Death is the surcease that comes when the exhausting battle has been lost.
became begun disorders dominate entered matter mild mood notion patients relatively time
Once the notion of depression had begun to dominate the diagnostic armamentarium, it became but a matter of time before patients with relatively mild disorders of mood or anxiety would be entered into it.
best biology both dying ecological individual inherent life planet served
Both individual fulfillment and the ecological balance of life on this planet are best served by dying when our inherent biology decrees that we do.
belongs death love
Death belongs to the dying and those who love them.
certainly coming human saved
Do you know what the world will be saved by? I'll tell you. It'll be saved by the human spirit. And by the human spirit, I don't mean anything divine, I don't mean anything supernatural - certainly not coming from this skeptic.
age continuing crossword devoted earlier interest itself lends people physical puzzles social tolstoy unlikely workers
Where nothing in a person's earlier years lends itself to an old age devoted to continuing intellectual and physical pursuits, a late-life interest in Tolstoy or even crossword puzzles is unlikely to appear, no matter the urging by well-intentioned social workers or people like me who write books about it.
letting-go art real
For aging is an art. The years between its first intimations and the time of the ultimate letting go of all earthly things can-if the readiness and resolve are there-be the real harvest of our lives.
differences sometimes danger
There is, to be sure, sometimes only a small difference between being alert to possible danger and allowing oneself to become terrified to the point of paralysis by seeming or imagined portents.
struggle acceptance expectations
A realistic expectation also demands our acceptance that one's allotted time on earth must be limited to an allowance consistent with the continuity of our species... We die so that the world may continue to live. We have been given the miracle of life because trillions and trillions of living things have prepared the way for us and then have died-in a sense, for us. We die, in turn, so that others may live. The tragedy of a single individual becomes, in the balance of natural things, the triumph of ongoing life.
details needs intimate
The more personal you are willing to be and the more intimate you are willing to be about the details of your own life, the more universal you are. Everybody needs to be understood. And out of that comes every form of love.
loneliness optimism healthy
Where the despair of loneliness and poverty haunts every hour, the optimism to embark on new projects cannot find a place to alight on the brains cortex. Poverty itself is an enormous obstacle to an enlightened and enlightening - not to say healthy - old age.
spiritual attitude materialistic
The life sciences contain spiritual values which can never be explained by the materialistic attitude of present day science