Men are naturally most impressed by diseases which have obvious manifestations, yet some of their worst enemies creep on them unobtrusively.
Interpretation
People tend to fear and notice obvious problems, while the more subtle issues can be much more harmful.
Rene Dubos highlights a critical aspect of human nature: we often react strongly to visible threats, such as diseases with clear symptoms, while ignoring or underestimating stealthy dangers that may be more damaging in the long run. This quote encourages awareness of less obvious challenges that can undermine our well-being.
In practice
In a speech about public health, one might say, 'As Rene Dubos pointed out, we should not just focus on diseases that are visible but also recognize those that creep up quietly.'
The wooing of the Earth thus implies much more than converting the wilderness into humanized environments. It means also preserving natural environments in which to experience mysteries transcending daily life and from which to recapture, in a Proustian kind of remembrance, the awareness of the cosmic forces that have shaped humankind.
Human diversity makes tolerance more than a virtue; it makes it a requirement for survival.
There is a demon in technology. It was put there by man and man will have to exorcise it before technological civilization can achieve the eighteenth-century ideal of humane civilized life.
Nature always strikes back. It takes all the running we can do to remain in the same place.
A journey never ends. Only the travellers end.
If I had a choice, if I had understood earlier that the reason my days were all the same was because I wanted them like that, perhaps.
Christianity, unlike any other religion in the world, begins with catastrophe and defeat. Sunshine religions and psychological inspirations collapse in calamity and wither in adversity. But the Life of the Founder of Christianity, having begun with the Cross, ends with the empty tomb and victory.
If we make anything that lasts, it outlives us.
For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.
Actions defined a man; words were a fart in the wind
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