Alexis Carrel's Quotes

The quality of life is more important than life itself.

Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor.

All of us, at certain moments of our lives, need to take advice and to receive help from other people.

Like hatred, jealousy is forbidden by the laws of life because it is essentially destructive.

Intuition comes very close to clairvoyance; it appears to be the extrasensory perception of reality.

Everyone makes a greater effort to hurt other people than to help himself.

The love of beauty in its multiple forms is the noblest gift of the human cerebrum.

All great men are gifted with intuition. They know without reasoning or analysis, what they need to know.

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.

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.

A few observation and much reasoning lead to error; many observations and a little reasoning to truth.

In man, the things which are not measurable are more important than those which are measurable.

Life leaps like a geyser for those who drill through the rock of inertia.

Religion brings to man an inner strength, spiritual light, and ineffable peace.

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.

Comforts and syphilis are the greatest enemies of mankind.

Hard conditions of life are indispensable to bringing out the best in human personality.

To what extent is any given man morally responsible for any given act? We do not know.

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.

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.