Rene Dubos Quotes

Human destiny is bound to remain a gamble, because at some unpredictable time and in some unforeseeable manner nature will strike back.

Rene Dubos

• Destiny
• Back
• Remain

Sometimes the more measurable drives out the most important.

Rene Dubos

• Important
• Sometimes
• Measurable

Man will survive as a species for one reason: He can adapt to the destructive effects of our power-intoxicated technology and of our ungoverned population growth, to the dirt, pollution and noise of a New York or Tokyo. And that is the tragedy. It is not man the ecological crisis threatens to destroy but the quality of human life.

Rene Dubos

• Life
• Technology
• New York

Clearly, health and disease cannot be defined merely in terms of anatomical, physiological, or mental attributes. Their real measure is the ability of the individual to function in a manner acceptable to himself and to the group of which he is a part.

Rene Dubos

• Individual
• Part
• Measure

What happens in the mind of man is always reflected in the disease of his body.

Rene Dubos

• Mind
• Body
• Happens

The very process of living is a continual interplay between the individual and his environment, often taking the form of a struggle resulting in injury or disease.

Rene Dubos

• Environment
• Struggle
• Process

But solving problems of disease is not the same thing as creating health and happiness. (...) Health and happiness are the expression of the manner in which the individual responds and adapts to the challenges that he meets in everyday life.

Rene Dubos

• Life
• Happiness
• Challenges

Each civilization has its own kind of pestilence and can control it only by reforming itself.

Rene Dubos

• Control
• Civilization
• Pestilence

The mechanisms of vis medicatrix naturæ—the most healing power of nature—are so effective that most diseases are self-terminating.

Rene Dubos

• Nature
• Self
• Healing

Man not only survives and functions in his environment, he shapes it and he is shaped by it.

Rene Dubos

• Environment
• Functions
• Survives

Human diversity makes tolerance more than a virtue; it makes it a requirement for survival.

Rene Dubos

• Diversity
• Survival
• Tolerance

To ward off disease or recover health, people as a rule find it easier to depend on healers than to attempt the more difficult task of living wisely.

Rene Dubos

• People
• Living
• Disease

One may wonder indeed whether the pretense of superior health is not itself rapidly becoming a mental aberration.

Rene Dubos

• Health
• Wonder
• Pretense

The earth is literally our mother, not only because we depend on her for nurture and shelter but even more because the human sepcies has been shaped by her in the womb of evolution. Our salvation depends upon our ability to create a religion of nature.

Rene Dubos

• Religion
• Salvation
• Depend

As long as mankind is made up of independent individuals with free will, there cannot be any social status quo. Men will develop new urges, and these will give rise to new problems, which will require ever new solutions. Human life implies adventure, and there is no adventure without struggles and dangers.

Rene Dubos

• Independent
• Problems
• Adventure