Quotes from Alexis Carrel

The difficulty of finding organs suitable for transplantation on man must be met.

Perhaps I will stay in Chicago and operate on human beings instead of on dogs. From a business standpoint, it would be excellent. But, as I hate medical practice, I would like better to make little money in doing scientific work than a great deal in doing surgical operations.

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

There are no watertight compartments in our inmost nature.

Life leaps like a geyser for those willing to drill through the rock of inertia.

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

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.

Like hatred, jealousy is forbidden by the laws of life because it is essentially destructive.

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

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.

The most efficient way to live reasonably is every morning to make a plan of one's day and every night to examine the results obtained.

The love of beauty in its multiple forms is the noblest gift of the human cerebrum.

Science has to be understood in its broadest sense, as a method for comprehending all observable reality, and not merely as an instrument for acquiring specialized knowledge.

The quality of life is more important than life itself.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor

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.

Happiness depends on one being exactly fitted to the nature of one's work.

All of us, at certain moments of our lives, need to take advice and to receive help from other people.

A tissue is evidently an enduring thing. It's functional and structural conditions become modified from moment to moment. Time is really the fourth dimension of living organisms. It enters as part into the constitution of a tissue. Cell colonies, or organs, are events which progressively unfold themselves. They must be studied like history.