Jonas Salk quotes

Jonas Salk was an American medical researcher and virologist, best known for developing the first effective polio vaccine. His work played a crucial role in reducing the global impact of polio and saving countless lives. He dedicated his life to medical research and humanitarian efforts. Here are 75 of his quotes:

Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.

Jonas Salk

As a child I was not interested in science. I was merely interested in things human, the human side of nature, if you like, and I continue to be interested in that. That's what motivates me.

Jonas Salk

There is hope in dreams, imagination, and in the courage of those who wish to make those dreams a reality.

Jonas Salk

Risks, I like to say, always pay off. You learn what to do, or what not to do.

Jonas Salk

Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.

Jonas Salk

It is courage based on confidence, not daring, and it is confidence based on experience.

Jonas Salk

Nothing happens quite by chance. It's a question of accretion of information and experience.

Jonas Salk

I couldn't possibly have become a member of this institute if I hadn't founded it myself.

Jonas Salk

I feel that the greatest reward for doing is the opportunity to do more.

Jonas Salk

As a bio-philosopher - as someone who draws upon the scriptures of nature, recognizing that we are the product of the process of evolution, and in a sense, we have become the process itself - through the emergence and evolution of our consciousness, our awareness, our capacity to imagine and to anticipate the future and to choose from amongst alternatives.

Jonas Salk

You can have a team of unconventional thinkers, as well as conventional thinkers. If you don't have the support of others you cannot achieve anything altogether on your own. It's like a cry in the wilderness. In each instance there were others who could see the same thing, and there were others who could not. It's an obvious difference we see in those who you might say have a bird's eye view, and those who have a worm's eye view. I've come to realize that we all have a different mind set, we all see things differently, and that's what the human condition is really all about.

Jonas Salk

I see the triumph of good over evil as a manifestation of the error-correcting process of evolution.

Jonas Salk

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

It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea. I work with it and rely on it. It's my partner.

Jonas Salk

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

There is something about human nature that has to be understood, and so ... I've shifted my attention from an interest in unity to an interest in creativity.

Jonas Salk

The art of science is as important as so-called technical science. You need both. It's this combination that must be recognized and acknowledged and valued.

Jonas Salk

What is ... important is that we - number one: Learn to live with each other. Number two: try to bring out the best in each other.

Jonas Salk

Evolution favors the survival of the wisest.

Jonas Salk

I pictured myself as a virus or a cancer cell and tried to sense what it would be like.

Jonas Salk

The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.

Jonas Salk

Richard Heffner: You say "We can create ourselves and our future" Salk: - by shaping our selves not our cells - thats the important distinction. ... We are shaping our cells, but we will not change our selves in the course of shaping our cells.

Jonas Salk