“The world is in an extremely dangerous situation, and serious diseases often require the risk of a dangerous cure — like the Pasteur serum for rabies.”

— Alan Watts

Inside Information p. 4
The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966)

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Alan Watts 107

British philosopher, writer and speaker 1915–1973

Related quotes

“A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy.”

Guy Fawkes (1570–1606) English member of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605

Remark (6 November 1605) as quoted in The Dictionary of National Biography Vol. 6 (1917); He is here invoking a version of a famous statement of Hippocrates, also translated as "Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases."

“For extreme diseases, extreme methods of cure, as to restriction, are most suitable.”

Hippocrates (-460–-370 BC) ancient Greek physician

1:6; Variant translations:
Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases. Compare: "A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy", Guy Fawkes, in admitting to the Gunpowder Plot; "Diseases desperate grown / By desperate appliance are relieved, / Or not at all", William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act iv, Scene 3; "For a desperate disease a desperate cure", Michel de Montaigne, The Custom of the Isle of Cea, Chapter iii.
Aphorisms

“The nearer any disease approaches to a crisis, the nearer it is to a cure. Danger and deliverance make their advances together, and it is only the last push, in which one or the other takes the lead.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

The Crisis No. IV.
1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)
Context: There is a mystery in the countenance of some causes, which we have not always present judgment enough to explain. It is distressing to see an enemy advancing into a country, but it is the only place in which we can beat them, and in which we have always beaten them, whenever they made the attempt. The nearer any disease approaches to a crisis, the nearer it is to a cure. Danger and deliverance make their advances together, and it is only the last push, in which one or the other takes the lead.