Jonas Salk: Quotes about people

Jonas Salk was Inventor of polio vaccine. Explore interesting quotes on people.
Jonas Salk: 94   quotes 2   likes

“The evolvers are people who cause things to change. The maintainers of the status quo do everything to keep things from changing. And, there I see differences of perception. Differences in vision. Differences in interpretation, and differences in temperament, in personality. The number of evolvers are much fewer than the maintainers of the status quo. And amongst the evolvers, there are some who are initiators, some who go along with what other people recognize to be new or different.”

Jonas Salk

Academy of Achievement interview (1991)

People , Change , Personality

“Now, some people might look at something and let it go by, because they don't recognize the pattern and the significance. It's the sensitivity to pattern recognition that seems to me to be of great importance. It's a matter of being able to find meaning, whether it's positive or negative, in whatever you encounter.”

Jonas Salk

Academy of Achievement interview (1991)
Context: Now, some people might look at something and let it go by, because they don't recognize the pattern and the significance. It's the sensitivity to pattern recognition that seems to me to be of great importance. It's a matter of being able to find meaning, whether it's positive or negative, in whatever you encounter. It's like a journey. It's like finding the paths that will allow you to go forward, or that path that has a block that tells you to start over again or do something else.

People

“I have the impression that the new generation of young people, are coming up on the scene with a sense "ancestorhood", and with more wisdom than was evident before.”

Jonas Salk

The Open Mind interview (1985)
Context: I have the impression that the new generation of young people, are coming up on the scene with a sense "ancestorhood", and with more wisdom than was evident before. I think this comes about as a matter of necessity — Almost as if there is something in us that is innate, something inherent in us, that is destined for a longer term, rather than a shorter term future.

Wisdom , People , Sense

“Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”

Jonas Salk

CBS Television interview, on See It Now (12 April 1955); quoted in Shots in the Dark : The Wayward Search for an AIDS Vaccine (2001) by Jon Cohen
Context: Edward R. Murrow: Who owns the patent on this vaccine?
Jonas Salk: Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?

People , Sun

“Now at the moment the world is suffering from large numbers of people who have no purpose in life — for whom there is no opportunity — and that's sad.”

Jonas Salk

The Open Mind interview (1985)
Context: I look upon ourselves as partners in all of this, and that each of us contributes and does what he can do best. And so I see not a top rung and a bottom rung — I see all this horizontally — and I see this as part of a matrix. And I see every human being as having a purpose, a destiny, if you like. And what my hope is that we can find some way to fulfill the biological potential, if you like — the destiny that exists in each of us — and find ways and means to provide such opportunities for everyone. Now at the moment the world is suffering from large numbers of people who have no purpose in life — for whom there is no opportunity — and that's sad.

Life , People , World , Sadness

“My attitude was always to keep open, to keep scanning. I think that's how things work in nature. Many people are close-minded, rigid, and that's not my inclination.”

Jonas Salk

Academy of Achievement interview (1991)

People , Nature , Thinking

“Know what is the purpose of life that you are inclined to serve, that you are drawn to. Do what makes your heart leap rather than simply follow some style or fashion. Not everyone can or should be a scientists. Not everyone can or should be any one thing. People need to know what kind of purpose they can serve.”

Jonas Salk

Academy of Achievement interview (1991)

Life , People , Fashion , Heart

“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.”

Jonas Salk

Academy of Achievement interview (1991)

People , Law , Nature , Sense

“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.”

Jonas Salk

Academy of Achievement interview (1991)

People , Age , Problem

“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.”

Jonas Salk

Academy of Achievement interview (1991)

People , Way , Question , Nature