Man will survive as a species for one reason: He can adapt to the destructive effects of our power-intoxicated technology and of our ungoverned population growth, to the dirt, pollution and noise of a New York or Tokyo. And that is the tragedy. It is not man the ecological crisis threatens to destroy but the quality of human life.
Rene DubosThe mechanisms of vis medicatrix naturรฆโthe most healing power of natureโare so effective that most diseases are self-terminating.
Rene DubosHuman life is now molded to a large extent by the changes that man has brought about in his external environment and by his attempts at controlling body and soul.
Rene DubosA sense of continuity with the rest of creation is a form of religious experience essential to sanity.
Rene DubosIt is often by a trivial, even an anecdotal decision, that we direct our activities into a certain channel, and thus determine which of the potential expressions of our individuality become manifest. Usually we know nothing of the ultimate orientation or of the outlet toward which we travel, and the stream sweeps us to a formula of life from which there is no returning. Every decision is like a murder, and our march forward is over the stillborn bodies of all our possible selves that will never be.
Rene DubosPathological states are the consequence of several determinate factors acting simultaneously...The manifestations of any given agent differ profoundly from one person to another. ...Each noxious agent can express itself by a great variety of different pathological states. ...Different agents can elicit similar reactions. ...The total environment and the (interior medium) constitute a multifactorial system.
Rene Dubos