Frases de Jonas Salk

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“Siempre me levanto por la mañana con emoción preguntándome lo que me deparará mi intuición, como dones del mar. Yo trabajo con ella y confío en ella. Es mi compañera.”

“La peor tragedia que podría haberme ocurrido fue mi éxito. Supe de inmediato que yo estaba acabado - proscrito.”

“Nada sucede por casualidad. Es una cuestión de acumulación de información y experiencias.”

“He tenido sueños y he tenido pesadillas, pero he vencido a mis pesadillas gracias a mis sueños.”

“La esperanza está en los sueños, en la imaginación, y en el coraje de los que se atreven a hacer realidad los sueños.”

“La intuición le dirá a la mente pensante dónde buscar lo siguiente.”

“Cuando inoculas a niños con la vacuna contra la polio, no duermes bien durante dos o tres meses.”

“We were told in one lecture that it was possible to immunize against diphtheria and tetanus by the use of chemically treated toxins, or toxoids. And the following lecture, we were told that for immunization against a virus disease, you have to experience the infection, and that you could not induce immunity with the so-called "killed" or inactivated, chemically treated virus preparation. Well, somehow, that struck me. What struck me was that both statements couldn't be true. And I asked why this was so, and the answer that was given was in a sense, 'Because.'”

“I was told I could, if I wished, switch and get a Ph. D. in biochemistry but my preference was to stay with medicine. And I believe that this is all linked to my original ambition, or desire, which was to be of some help to humankind, so to speak, in a larger sense than just on a one-to-one basis. Just as I intended to study law, to make just laws, so I found myself interested now in the laws of nature, as distinct from the laws the people make.”

“There are three stages of truth. First is that it can't be true, and that's what they said. You couldn't immunize against polio with a killed-virus vaccine. Second phase: they say, "Well, if it's true, it's not very important. And the third stage is, 'Well, we've known it all along."”

“Some people are constructive, if you like. Others are destructive. It's this diversity in humankind that results in some making positive contributions and some negative contributions. It's necessary to have enough who make positive contributions to overcome the problems of each age.”

“Since whatever we do has to be part of a team, part of a community, we have to attempt to bring together those who have the same conviction, see the same things. Then it becomes a matter of time, when one or the other will prevail. Fortunately, there is all this diversity, and if not for that, problems would not be solved.”

“There is something about human nature that has to be understood, and so … I've shifted my attention from an interest in unity to an interest in creativity.”

“You have to develop a thick skin in life. Its not in this field only. You might think of the ideal of the scientists, the ivory tower, the idealist. That's true of some. And I wouldn't guess as to what proportion. But there are some who are of that character, and there are some who are not.”

“It is courage based on confidence, not daring, and it is confidence based on experience.”

“I couldn't possibly have become a member of this institute if I hadn't founded it myself.”

“Risks, I like to say, always pay off. You learn what to do, or what not to do.”

“As a bio-philosopher — as someone who draws upon the scriptures of nature, recognizing that we are the product of the process of evolution, and in a sense, we have become the process itself — through the emergence and evolution of our consciousness, our awareness, our capacity to imagine and to anticipate the future and to choose from amongst alternatives.”

“I already see enough evidence for this optimism … in recent years I find that perhaps what Im seeking is a scientific basis for hope, and I think I've found it.”

“You can have a team of unconventional thinkers, as well as conventional thinkers. If you don't have the support of others you cannot achieve anything altogether on your own. It's like a cry in the wilderness. In each instance there were others who could see the same thing, and there were others who could not. It's an obvious difference we see in those who you might say have a bird's eye view, and those who have a worm's eye view. I've come to realize that we all have a different mind set, we all see things differently, and that's what the human condition is really all about.”

“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.”

“Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.”

“Why do I see things differently from the way other people see them? Why do I pursue the questions that I pursue, even if others regard them as, as they say, "controversial?" Which merely means that they have a difference of opinion. They see things differently. I am interested both in nature, and in the human side of nature, and how the two can be brought together, and effectively used.”