Quotes from Rene Dubos

In man, at least, satisfaction is commonly followed by boredom.

... men as a rule are more preoccupied with the dangers that threaten their life than interested in the biological forces on which they depend for a constructive existence.

Whatever his inhibitions and tastes, Western man believes in the natural holiness of seminudism and raw vegetable juice, because these have become for him symbols of unadultered nature.

Biologically, man is still the great amateur of the animal kingdom; he is unique in his lack of anatomical and physiological specialization.

Human 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.

The word "wilderness" occurs approximately three hundred times in the Bible, and all its meanings are derogatory.

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

Nature always strikes back. It takes all the running we can do to remain in the same place.

With reference to life there is not one nature; there are only associations of states and circumstances, varying from place to place and from time to time.

To ward off disease or recover health, people as a rule find it easier to depend on healers than to attempt the more difficult task of living wisely.

One may wonder indeed whether the pretense of superior health is not itself rapidly becoming a mental aberration.

Wherever human beings are concerned, trend is not destiny.

A very large percentage of illnesses are the expressions of inadequate responses to the environment.

Human destiny is bound to remain a gamble, because at some unpredictable time and in some unforeseeable manner nature will strike back.

Nature always strikes back. It takes all the running we can do to remain in the same place.

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.

The word "wilderness" occurs approximately three hundred times in the Bible, and all its meanings are derogatory.

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

Think globally, act locally": "Our salvation depends upon our ability to create a religion of nature.

A sense of continuity with the rest of creation is a form of religious experience essential to sanity.

Man not only survives and functions in his environment, he shapes it and he is shaped by it.

The very process of living is a continual interplay between the individual and his environment, often taking the form of a struggle resulting in injury or disease.

More can be learned from what works than from what fails.

Life is short, the art is long, the problems pressing.