Eradication of microbial disease is a will-o'-the-wisp; pursuing it leads into a morass of hazy biological concepts and half truths.

It 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.

Social evolution may be the result of intention, but it rarely, if ever, produces the result intended.

Human diversity makes tolerance more than a virtue; it makes it a requirement for survival.

In 1946, Oxford University in England was offered large funds to create a new Institute of Human Nutrition. The University refused the funds on the ground that the knowledge of human nutrition was essentially complete, and that the proposed institution would soon run out of meaningful research projects.

It is possible to analyze the biological and social influences that make each human being unique, unprecedented, and unrepeatable, but this analysis does not explain how and why each feels different from all other human beings.

The mechanisms of vis medicatrix naturæ—the most healing power of nature—are so effective that most diseases are self-terminating.