Christiaan Barnard quotes

Christiaan Barnard was a South African heart surgeon renowned for performing the world’s first human-to-human heart transplant. His groundbreaking surgery in 1967 brought global attention to advancements in cardiac medicine. He paved the way for new possibilities in organ transplantation and medical innovation. Here are 8 of his quotes:

Suffering isn't ennobling, recovery is. (Christiaan Barnard)
The prime goal is to alleviate suffering, and not to prolong life. And if your treatment does not alleviate suffering, but only prolongs life, that treatment should be stopped. View quote
Christiaan Barnard
On Saturday, I was a surgeon in South Africa, very little known. On Monday, I was world renowned. View quote
Christiaan Barnard
If the poor overweight jogger only knew how far he had to run to work off the calories in a crust of bread he might find it better in terms of pound per mile to go to a massage parlor. View quote
Christiaan Barnard
I don't believe medical discoveries are doing much to advance human life. As fast as we create ways to extend it we are inventing ways to shorten it. View quote
Christiaan Barnard
It is infinitely better to transplant a heart than to bury it to be devoured by worms. View quote
Christiaan Barnard
This mountain, I thought, was like education: The higher you climbed, the farther you could see. View quote
Christiaan Barnard
Last year a Dutch animal breeding centre sent me two chimpanzees as a gift. I killed one and cut its heart out. The other wept bitterly and was inconsolable. The sad chimp has long since happily mated again and lives with lots of other animals on a pleasant game farm near Villiersdorp. I vowed never again to experiment with such sensitive creatures, but the memory of that weeping chimp has remained with me. It was taken for granted, of course, that he was weeping for his mate but I've since had some thoughts on the subject which made me wonder whether perhaps he was weeping for the human race. The idea is not as silly as it sounds. In our doings there is much to weep over and even a chimpanzee would never behave in some of the contradictory ways we think of as normal. View quote
Christiaan Barnard