“A hot topic of late, expressed most notably in Bernie Siegel's best-selling books, has emphasized the role of positive attitude in combating such serious diseases as cancer. From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom.”

—  Stephen Jay Gould

Source: Full House (1996), p. 47

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A hot topic of late, expressed most notably in Bernie Siegel's best-selling books, has emphasized the role of positive …" by Stephen Jay Gould?
Stephen Jay Gould photo
Stephen Jay Gould 274
American evolutionary biologist 1941–2002

Related quotes

Robert Greene photo

“Lord, protect me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies.”

Robert Greene book The 48 Laws of Power

Variation: Defend me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies myself The quote has been attributed to Voltaire, who was using it after Villars. Quoted in Connie Robertson, Dictionary of Quotations, 1998
Source: The 48 Laws of Power

YG (rapper) photo

“Just seeing people getting cancer and dying from it, and me hearing that that's the stuff that we put inside of us is what's causing this cancer… it was my peoples who passed from cancer. I'm asking around like, "Where this cancer s--- coming from?"”

YG (rapper) (1990) American rapper from Compton, California

Everything we eat—the processed food and the stuff they put inside it.

"YG Explains Why He Went Vegan In 'Breakfast Club' Interview" https://www.vibe.com/2016/06/yg-breakfast-club-interview, Vibe.com (22 June 2016).

“Sometimes there was a serious article on a hot topic, and I especially remember one by a bishop headed "Is Nudity Salacious?"”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

A Rake at Reading (1980).
Context: Sometimes there was a serious article on a hot topic, and I especially remember one by a bishop headed "Is Nudity Salacious?" The bishop thought it need not be, if encountered in the proper spirit, but he gave a lot of enlightening examples of conditions under which it might be, in his word, "inflammatory." There wasn't much nudity in our neck of the woods, and I enjoyed that article tremendously.

Genco Gulan photo

“Today the term “global” can no longer constitute a serious topic for an in depth intellectual discussion because it simply means “Camerica.””

Genco Gulan (1969) contemporary artist

Gulan, Genco. (2004). CAMERICA, PUPPY ART AND THE REST THAT GLOW IN THE DARK http://artefact.mi2.hr/_a04/lang_en/theory_gulan_en.htm. Artefact. Retrieved 2012-07-23.

John Cowper Powys photo

“The permanent mental attitude which the sensitive intelligence derives from philosophy is an attitude that combines extreme reverence with limitless skepticism.”

John Cowper Powys (1872–1963) British writer, lecturer and philosopher

Source: The Meaning of Culture (1929), pp. 27-28

Gene Wolfe photo

“It will come as no surprise to those of you in the book trade when I say that although books do not cause cancer, books in general do not sell as well as cigarettes.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Guest of Honor speech at Aussiecon Two (43rd World Science Fiction Convention, August 1985), as published in Castle of Days (1992)
Nonfiction

“This inseparableness of everything in the world from language has intrigued modern thinkers, most notably Ludwig Wittgenstein”

Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer

Word Play (1974)
Context: This inseparableness of everything in the world from language has intrigued modern thinkers, most notably Ludwig Wittgenstein... If its limits—that is, the precise point at which sense becomes nonsense—could somehow be defined, then speakers would not attempt to express the inexpressible. Therefore, said Wittgenstein, do not put too great a burden upon language. Learn its limitations and try to accommodate yourself to them, for language offers all the reality you can ever hope to know.

“The suspicion has to arrive that if a public conversation about acceleration is beginning, it’s just in time to be too late. The profound institutional crisis that makes the topic ‘hot’ has at its core an implosion of social decision-making capability.”

Nick Land (1962) British philosopher

"A Quick-and-Dirty Introduction to Accelerationism" https://jacobitemag.com/2017/05/25/a-quick-and-dirty-introduction-to-accelerationism/ (2017)

Jennifer Beals photo

“[On cancer] One of the problems is that the notion of cancer has been so normalized. You hear about it so often, and it's not ok… it's not ok to normalize this disease. And with all of the pinkwashing that goes on —where companies are selling products based on breast cancer month — it's a lovely gesture, but consumers get so used to it that it becomes more normal.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Interview at Susan G. Komen for the Cure (October 2011) http://www.kstreetkate.net/2011/10/jennifer-beals-honors-promise-talks.html

Edgar Allan Poe photo

“After reading all that has been written, and after thinking all that can be thought on the topics of God and the soul, the man who has a right to say that he thinks at all, will find himself face to face with the conclusion that, on these topics, the most profound thought is that which can be the least easily distinguished from the most superficial sentiment.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

Marginalia http://www.easylit.com/poe/comtext/prose/margin.shtml (November 1844)

Related topics