Explore Quotes by Alexis Carrel

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.

The modern city consists of...dark, narrow streets full of gasoline fumes, coal dust, and toxic gasses, torn by the noise.

...the influence of the factory upon the physiological and mental state of the workers has been completely neglected.

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.

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.

...in recognition of his work on vascular suture and the transplantation of blood-vessels and organs.

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

The influence of prayer on the human mind and body is as demonstrable as that of secreting glands. Its results can be measured in terms of increased physical buoyancy, greater intellectual vigor, moral stamina, and a deeper understanding of the realities underlying human relationship.

Prayer is the most powerful form of energy one can generate....It supplies us with a flow of sustaining power in our daily lives.

There are no watertight compartments in our inmost nature.

Men grow when inspired by a high purpose, when contemplating vast horizons. The sacrifice of oneself is not very difficult for one burning with the passion for a great adventure.

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.

Man offers himself to God. He stands before Him like the canvas before the painter or the marble before the sculptor. At the same time he asks for His grace, expresses his needs and those of his brothers in suffering. Such a type of prayer demands complete renovation. The modest, the ignorant, and the poor are more capable of this self-denial than the rich and the intellectual.

The cell is immortal. It is merely the fluid in which it floats that degenerates. Renew this fluid at regular intervals, give the cells what they require for nutrition, and as far as we know, the pulsation of life can go on forever.

Prayer is the force as real as terrestrial gravity. As a physician, I have seen men, after all other therapy had failed, lifted out of disease and melancholy by the serene effort of prayer. 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.

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

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

Comforts and syphilis are the greatest enemies of mankind.

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.

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

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