Rita Levi-Montalcini Quotes (15 quotes)

Rita Levi-Montalcini: 15 quotes 24 likes

Famous Rita Levi-Montalcini Quotes

“At 100, I have a mind that is superior — thanks to experience — than when I was 20.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Source: Quoted in Associated Press obituary http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50324234/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.UO09q6w1fTp

“I never had any hesitation or regrets in this sense. My life has been enriched by excellent human relations, work and interests. I have never felt lonely.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Of the fact that she never married; quoted in Associated Press obituary.

“Better to add life to your days than days to your life.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Source: https://www.frasicelebri.it/frasi-di/rita-levi-montalcini/.

“Rare are those people who use the mind, few use the heart and really unique are those who use both.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Source: https://www.frasicelebri.it/frasi-di/rita-levi-montalcini/.

“I'm an atheist: I don't know what it means to believe in God.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Source: Interview with Piergiorgio Odifreddi in Incontri con menti straordinarie (TEA, Milano, 2007), ISBN 978-88-502-1523-2.

“The women who changed the world never needed to show anything other than their own intelligence.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Source: Cited in Addio a Rita Levi Montalcini, scienziata e donna straordinaria http://www.panorama.it/scienza/rita-levi-montalcini-morta/, Panorama.it, 30 dicembre 2012.

Rita Levi-Montalcini Quotes

“I have lost a bit of my sight, much of my hearing. At conferences, I can't see the presentations and can't hear well. But I think more now than when I when I was twenty. The body can do whatever it likes. I am not the body: I am the mind.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Source: In an interview with Paolo Giordano, 100 anni di futuro, Wired, n. 1, marzo 2009.
Source: Cited by Elisabetta Intini, Addio alla signora della scienza, le sue frasi più belle http://www.focus.it/scienza/addio-alla-signora-della-scienza-le-sue-frasi-piu-belle, Focus.it, 31 dicembre 2012.
Source: Cited in Addio Rita Levi Montalcini, le frasi più belle di un genio gentile http://www.vanityfair.it/news/italia/12/12/30/rita-levi-montalcini-morta-frasi, VanityFair.it, 30 dicembre 2012.

Thinking

“She had this feeling for what was happening biologically. She was an intuitive observer, and she saw that something was making these nerve connections grow and was determined to find out what it was.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Stanley Cohen, quoted in New York Times obituary http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/science/dr-rita-levi-montalcini-a-revolutionary-in-the-study-of-the-brain-dies-at-103.html?_r=0
About

Feeling

“She seemed able to face with equal equanimity the rigours of fascist cruelty and suppression that she was dealt as a Jew; the problems of practising underground medicine in wartime; the difficulties posed by prejudice and discrimination against women; and the near isolation and challenges of those working at the cutting edge of science.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Obituary in The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/dec/30/rita-levi-montalcini
About

Women , Problem , Science

“The allegations against Fidia cannot be true. The process for awarding Nobel prizes is so complex that it cannot be corrupted.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Rebutting allegations that the pharmaceutical company Fidia had paid for her to get her Nobel prize. Quoted in Obituary in The Guardian

“After centuries of dormancy, young women can now look toward a future moulded by their own hands.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Quoted in Obituary in The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/dec/30/rita-levi-montalcini

Women , Future

“It is imperfection — not perfection — that is the end result of the program written into that formidably complex engine that is the human brain, and of the influences exerted upon us by the environment and whoever takes care of us during the long years of our physical, psychological and intellectual development.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Quoted in New York Times obituary http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/science/dr-rita-levi-montalcini-a-revolutionary-in-the-study-of-the-brain-dies-at-103.html?_r=0

Perfection

“Everything came easy to me in life. I could always shake off difficulties, like water on a duck's wings.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Source: In an interview with Paolo Giordano, 100 anni di futuro, Wired, n. 1, marzo 2009.

Water , Life

“In life one should never give in, surrender oneself to mediocrity, but rather move out of that grey area where everything is habit and passive resignation. One has to grow the courage to rebel.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Source: https://www.frasicelebri.it/frasi-di/rita-levi-montalcini/.

Courage , Life

“Man is ruined by servility, conformism, obsequiousness, rather than aggressiveness, which is much more common in the environment than within ourselves.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Source: From the presentation Elogio dell'imperfezione (Garzanti, 1987), Liceo classico Massimo d'Azeglio, Torino; cited in Giovanni Berlinguer, Il leopardo in salotto, Editori Riuniti, 1990.