Alexis Carrel Quotes - Page 2

Discipline brings us effort, sacrifice and suffering. Later it brings us something of an inestimable value: something of which those who live only for pleasure, profit or amusement will always be deprived. This peculiar indefinable joy which one must have felt oneself to understand is the sign with which life marks its moment of triumph.

Only in prayer do we achieve that complete and harmonious assembly of body, mind, and spirit which gives the frail human reed its unshakable strength.

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.

Scientific civilisation has destroyed the soul of the world.

Prayer is a force as real as terrestrial gravity. As a physician, I have seen men lifted out of sickness by the power of prayer. It is the only power in the world that overcomes the laws of nature.

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 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.

Prayer is a cry of distress, a demand for help, a hymn of love.

Jesus knows our world. He does not disdain us like the God of Aristotle. We can speak to Him and He answers us. Although He is a person like ourselves, He is God and transcends all things.

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

Prayer, like radium, is a luminous and self-generating form of energy.

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.

Patients have been cured almost instantaneously of...lupus...,cancer ...,ulcers..., tuberculosis ...In a few seconds, at most a few hours, the symptoms disappear and the anatomic lesions mend. The miracle is characterized by extreme acceleration of the normal process of healing.

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

The search for God is indeed, an entirely personal undertaking.... the most audacious adventure that one can dare.

One must train oneself, by small and frequent efforts, to dominate one's feelings.

Prayer, the basic exercise of the spirit, must be actively practiced in our private lives. The neglected soul of the human being must be made strong enough to assert itself once more. For if the power of prayer is again released and used in the lives of common men and women; if the spirit declares its aims clearly and boldly, there is yet hope that our prayers for a better world will be answered.

Logic never attracts men to the point of carrying them away.

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

When we pray we link ourselves with an inexhaustible motive power.

Those who do not know how to fight worry die young.

Enormous amounts of money are spent for publicity. As a result, large quantities of alimentary and pharmaceutical products, at the least useless, and often harmful, have become a necessity for civilized men.

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.

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.

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.