Quotessence
Home / Authors / Oliver Sacks
Oliver Sacks

Oliver Sacks Quotes

Neurologist

Filter quotes by topic

AllBrainIfsSciencePsychologyFeelingsPeopleIdentitySelfThinkingWorld

Famous Oliver Sacks Quotes

“The brain is more than an assemblage of autonomous modules, each crucial for a specific mental function. Every one of these functionally specialized areas must interact with dozens or hundreds of others, their total integration creating something like a vastly complicated orchestra with thousands of instruments, an orchestra that conducts itself, with an ever-changing score and repertoire.”

BrainCreatingAreasFunctionInstrumentsComplicatedScoreCrucialDozenIntegrationOrchestraAutonomousCreating SomethingAssemblage
Author:Oliver Sacks
Create image

“If we wish to know about a man, we ask 'what is his story--his real, inmost story?'--for each of us is a biography, a story. Each of us is a singular narrative, which is constructed, continually, unconsciously, by, through, and in us--through our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts, our actions; and, not least, our discourse, our spoken narrations. Biologically, physiologically, we are not so different from each other; historically, as narratives--we are each of us unique.”

IfsKnowsMenDifferentRealStoriesFeelingsActionAsksWishPerceptionUniqueNarrativeOur ThoughtsBiographiesDiscourseOur ActionsNarration
Author:Oliver Sacks
Create image

“There are, of course, inherent tendencies to repetition in music itself. Our poetry, our ballads, our songs are full of repetition; nursery rhymes and the little chants and songs we use to teach young children have choruses and refrains. We are attracted to repetition, even as adults; we want the stimulus and the reward again and again, and in music we get it. Perhaps, therefore, we should not be surprised, should not complain if the balance sometimes shifts too far and our musical sensitivity becomes a vulnerability.”

IfsWantShouldChildrenLittlesSometimesUseYoungSongCoursesTeachBalanceAdultsRewardsMusicalComplainingTendenciesVulnerabilityInherentAgain And AgainRhymeSensitivityRepetitionStimulusRefrainChorusNurseryYoung ChildrenBalladsNursery Rhymes
Author:Oliver Sacks
Create image

“Given her deafness, the auditory part of the brain, deprived of its usual input, had started to generate a spontaneous activity of its own, and this took the form of musical hallucinations, mostly musical memories from her earlier life. The brain needed to stay incessantly active, and if it was not getting its usual stimulation..., it would create its own stimulation in the form of hallucinations.”

IfsFormGivenMemoriesBrainNeededActivityMusicalActiveUsualSpontaneousDeprivedInputHallucinationsStimulationIncessantlyDeafnessAuditory
Book:Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
Create image

“And so was Luria, whose words now came back to me: ‘A man does not consist of memory alone. He has feeling, will, sensibility, moral being ... It is here ... you may touch him, and see a profound change.’ Memory, mental activity, mind alone, could not hold him; but moral attention and action could hold him completely.”

MenMindMayDoeFeelingsActionMemoriesAttentionMoralActivityProfoundSensibility
Book:The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales
Create image

“But the saddest difference between them was that Zazetsky, as Luria said, 'fought to regain his lost faculties with the indomitable tenacity of the damned,' whereas Dr P. was not fighting, did not know what was lost. But who was more tragic, or who was more damned -- the man who knew it, or the man who did not?”

KnowsMenSaidFightingLostDifferencesTragicFacultyDrsTenacitySaddestIndomitable
Book:The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Picador Classic
Create image

“To be ourselves we must have ourselves – possess, if need be re-possess, our life-stories. We must “recollect” ourselves, recollect the inner drama, the narrative, of ourselves. A man needs such a narrative, a continuous inner narrative, to maintain his identity, his self.”

IfsMenNeedsSelfStoriesOur LivesIdentityDramaNarrativeLife Story
Book:The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Picador Classic
Create image

“Scheele, it was said, never forgot anything if it had to do with chemistry. He never forgot the look, the feel, the smell of a substance, or the way it was transformed in chemical reactions, never forgot anything he read, or was told, about the phenomena of chemistry. He seemed indifferent, or inattentive, to most things else, being wholly dedicated to his single passion, chemistry. It was this pure and passionate absorption in phenomena-noticing everything, forgetting nothing-that constituted Scheele's special strength.”

IfsWayFeelsLooksSaidPassionForgetSpecialPurePassionateSmellReactionsSubstanceChemistryChemicalsDedicatedTransformedDedicationIndifferentNoticingAbsorptionChemical Reactions
Book:Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood
Create image

“I was fascinated that one could have such perceptual changes, and also that they went with a certain feeling of significance, an almost numinous feeling. I'm strongly atheist by disposition, but nonetheless when this happened, I couldn't help thinking, 'That must be what the hand of God is like.'”

ThinkingHelpingFeelingsHandsCertainHappenedAtheistSignificanceWeedFascinatedMarijuanaDispositionHands Of GodMedical MarijuanaFunny MarijuanaFunny WeedNuminous
Author:Oliver Sacks
Create image

“Muscular dystrophy ... was never seen until Duchenne described it in the 1850s. By 1860, after his original description, many hundreds of cases had been recognised and described, so much so that Charcot said: 'How is it that a disease so common, so widespread, and so recognisable at a glance - a disease which has doubtless always existed - how is it that it is recognised only now? Why did we need M. Duchenne to open our eyes?'”

NeedsSaidEyeCommonCasesDiseaseOriginalsChessDescriptionGlancesMuscular Dystrophy
Author:Oliver Sacks
Create image

“There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate - the genetic and neural fate - of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.”

PeopleLifeHumansDeathDiesIndividualHuman BeingsGonePathFateDyingUniqueFilledHolesUniquenessReplacedUnique IndividualsNeurologists
Book:Gratitude
Create image