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If all insects disappeared, all life on earth would perish. If all humans disappeared, all life on earth would flourish.

Jonas Salk

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Jonas Salk
Age: 80 †
Born: 1914
Born: October 28
Died: 1995
Died: June 23
Biologist
Epidemiologist
Immunologist
Inventor
Medical Researcher
Physician
Virologist
New York City
New York
Jonas Edward Salk
Humans
Would
Life
Disappeared
Flourish
Perish
Insects
Earth

More quotes by Jonas Salk

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As a child I was not interested in science. I was merely interested in things human, the human side of nature, if you like, and I continue to be interested in that. That's what motivates me.
Jonas Salk
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In my view, art and the approach to life through art, using it as a vehicle for education and even for doing science is so vital that it is part of a great new revolution that is taking place. I believe we are entering a whole new epoch.
Jonas Salk
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Evolution favors the survival of the wisest.
Jonas Salk
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My ambition was to bring to bear on medicine a chemical approach. I did that by chemical manipulation of viruses and chemical ways of thinking in biomedical research.
Jonas Salk
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What people think of as the moment of discovery is really the discovery of the question.
Jonas Salk
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Are we being good ancestors?
Jonas Salk
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This is perhaps the most beautiful time in human history it is really pregnant with all kinds of creative possibilities made possible by science and technology which now constitute the slave of man - if man is not enslaved by it.
Jonas Salk
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Risks, I like to say, always pay off. You learn what to do, or what not to do.
Jonas Salk
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Wisdom: It's something that you know when you see it. You can recognize it, you can experience it. I have defined wisdom as the capacity to make judgments that when looked back upon will seem to have been wise.
Jonas Salk
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[Who owns the patent on this vaccine?] Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?
Jonas Salk
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My life is pretty well at peace, and the profession is more of an avocation. It's a calling, if you like, rather than a job. I do what I feel impelled to do, as an artist would.
Jonas Salk
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I speak about universal evolution and teleological evolution, because I think the process of evolution reflects the wisdom of nature. I see the need for wisdom to become operative. We need to try to put all of these things together in what I call an evolutionary philosophy of our time.
Jonas Salk
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I have had dreams and I have had nightmares, but I have conquered my nightmares because of my dreams.
Jonas Salk
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The mind, in addition to medicine, has powers to turn the immune system around.
Jonas Salk
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If humankind would accept and acknowledge this responsibility and become creatively engaged in the process of evolution, consciously as well as unconsciously, a new reality would emerge, and a new age could be born.
Jonas Salk
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There is hope in dreams, imagination, and in the courage of those who wish to make those dreams a reality.
Jonas Salk
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When I worked on the polio vaccine, I had a theory. I guided each [experiment] by imagining myself in the phenomenon in which I was interested. The intuitive realm . . . the realm of the imagination guides my thinking.
Jonas Salk
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The art of science is as important as so-called technical science. You need both. It's this combination that must be recognized and acknowledged and valued.
Jonas Salk
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It is courage based on confidence, not daring, and it is confidence based on experience.
Jonas Salk
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I see the triumph of good over evil as a manifestation of the error-correcting process of evolution.
Jonas Salk