What makes literature interesting is that it does not survive its translation. The characters in a novel are made out of the sentences. That's what their substance is.
Jonathan MillerRead
I wasn't driven into medicine by a social conscience but by rampant curiosity.
Interpretation
Curiosity, rather than altruism, motivated the pursuit of medicine.
In this quote, Jonathan Miller emphasizes that his choice to enter the field of medicine was primarily driven by his desire to understand and explore the complexities of the human body and healing processes, rather than a sense of duty to help others. This highlights the importance of curiosity as a fundamental aspect of pursuing knowledge and a career in science, reinforcing that personal interests can lead to significant contributions in healthcare.
In practice
During a medical conference, a speaker mentioned Miller's quote to emphasize the importance of curiosity in medical innovation.
What makes literature interesting is that it does not survive its translation. The characters in a novel are made out of the sentences. That's what their substance is.
You spend ten years of your life being trained to do one thing, and you're being taught to think that it's the most serious thing that anyone could possibly do, and then suddenly you find yourself doing something that in some respects is the epitome of frivolity.
What does it mean to be an oncologist? It means that you get to sit in at a moment of another person's life that is so hyper-acute, and not just because they're medically ill. It's also a moment of hope and expectation and concern.
At times, in medicine, you feel you are inside a colossal and impossibly complex machine whose gears will turn for you only according to their own arbitrary rhythm. The notion that human caring, the effort to do better for people, might make a difference can seem hopelessly naive. But it isn't.
No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength
Learning gives us a fuller conviction of the imperfections of our nature; which one would think, might dispose us to modesty.
Some degree of novelty must be one of the materials in almost every instrument which works upon the mind; and curiosity blends itself, more or less, with all our pleasures.
I think the cardinal rule of learning to write is learning to read first. I learned to write by learning to read.
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