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Alexis Carrel Quotes

Alexis Carrel was a French surgeon and biologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912 for pioneering vascular suturing techniques. He invented the first perfusion pump with Charles A. Lindbergh opening the way to organ transplantation. Like many intellectuals of his time, he promoted eugenics. He was a regent for the French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems during Vichy France which implemented the eugenics policies there; his association with the Foundation and with Jacques Doriot's ultra-nationalist Parti Populaire Français led to investigations of collaborating with the Nazis, but he died before any trial could be held. He faced media attacks towards the end of his life over his alleged involvement with the Nazis.

A Nobel Prize laureate in 1912, Alexis Carrel was also elected twice, in 1924 and 1927, as an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

✵ 28. June 1873 – 5. November 1944
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Alexis Carrel: 7 quotes7 likes

Famous Alexis Carrel Quotes

“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.”

Alexis Carrel

“The existence of finality within the organism is undeniable. Each part seems to know the present and future needs of the whole, and acts accordingly. The significance of time and space is not the same for our tissues as for our mind. The body perceives the remote as well as the near, the future as well as the present.”

Alexis Carrel

Source: (1935), p. 197

“Intelligence is almost useless to the person whose only quality it is.”

Alexis Carrel

L'intelligence est presque inutile à celui qui ne possède qu'elle.
(1935)

“The German government has taken energetic measures against the propagation of the defective, the mentally diseased, and the criminal. The ideal solution would be the suppression of each of these individuals as soon as he has proven himself to be dangerous.”

Alexis Carrel

As quoted by Andrés Horacio Reggiani: God's eugenicist. Alexis Carrel and the sociobiology of decline. Berghahn Books, Oxford 2007, p. 71. See Der Mensch, das unbekannte Wesen. DVA, Stuttgart 1937.
(1935)

“The conditioning of petty criminals with the whip, or some more scientific procedure, followed by a short stay in hospital, would probably suffice to insure order. Those who have murdered, robbed while armed with automatic pistol or machine gun, kidnapped children, despoiled the poor of their savings, misled the public in important matters, should be humanely and economically disposed of in small euthanasic institutions supplied with proper gasses. A similar treatment could be advantageously applied to the insane, guilty of criminal acts.”

Alexis Carrel

Source: (1935), p. 391

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

Alexis Carrel

As quoted in Nava-Vēda : God and Man (Nara and Narayan) (1968‎) by M. B. Raja Rao, p. 229

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