Oliver Sacks was a great British neurologist and writer who died in 2015 from terminal liver cancer.
Throughout his life he published numerous works, among which stand out: “The man who mistook his wife for a hat”, “An anthropologist on Mars” or “Awakenings”.
There were many quotes full of wisdom that this character uttered. Therefore, in this article, We have prepared a list for you with his most brilliant phrases
1. We speak not only to tell people what we think, but we say what we think. Speech is a part of thought
Thanks to speech we can communicate our thoughts and emotions with others.
2. There are defects, diseases and disorders that can play a paradoxical role, revealing capabilities, developments, evolutions, latent forms of life, which could never be seen, or even imagined in their absence.
Mental problems and illnesses can change the way we relate to the environment.
3. I can’t pretend to be someone without fear. But my predominant feeling is gratitude
Oliver Sacks reflecting on what his life had been.
4. And then, as if it had been painted with a giant brush, a huge quivering pear-shaped stain of the purest indigo emerged. Luminous, numinous, it filled me with ecstasy: it was the color of the sky, the color, I told myself, that Giotto had spent his life trying to find without success, perhaps because the color of the sky is not seen on earth.
A quote taken from his work called “Hallucinations”.
5. When faith in traditional figures – demons, witches or harpies – is lost, new ones take their place: aliens, apparitions from “a previous life”
He was always interested in the inner world of people with psychotic disorders.
6. Patients who showed delirium were almost always in medical or surgical wards, not in neurological or psychiatric wards, since delirium generally signals a medical problem, a consequence of something that affects the entire body, including the brain, and that disappears as soon as the medical problem is resolved
A reflection on how people suffering from delusional disorder are treated.
7. Humans share many things with other animals – the basic needs for food and drink, or sleep, for example – but there are additional mental and emotional needs and desires that are unique to humans.
Humans have superior abilities that other animals do not possess.
8. Studies carried out by Andrew Newberg and others have shown that continuous meditation practice produces important alterations in blood circulation in parts of the brain related to attention, emotion and some autonomic functions
Meditation has been shown to have enormous benefits for people’s emotional health.
9. There is only one golden rule: one must always listen to the patient
Treatment with the patient must be individualized and, therefore, the needs must be listened to.
10. Every act of perception is to some extent an act of creation, and every act of memory is to some extent an act of imagination.
A phrase by Oliver Sacks that invites the reader to deep reflection.
11. Music, unique among the arts, is both completely abstract and deeply emotional
Music has the power to modify our behavior and affects our emotional state.
12. People are going to build a life on their own terms, whether they are deaf or colorblind or autistic or whatever. And your world will be as rich and interesting and full as our world can be.
We all build our scheme of the world even if we have limitations.
13. There will be no one like us when we are gone, there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. Holes emerge that cannot be filled, since it is the destiny – destiny and neuronal genetics – of every human being to be a unique individual, to find their own path, to live their own life, and die their own death.
Each of us has unique personal characteristics that make us different and irreplaceable.
14. I believe that the brain is a dynamic system in which some parts exert control or other parts suppress it. And if perhaps one has damage in one of the areas that they control or suppress, then something unexpected may appear, it could be an attack, a different trait or even a sudden passion for music.
Our brain allows us to experience unique and impressive things.
15. If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows that he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost the self, if he has lost himself, he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it.
When someone does not know themselves in depth or connect with themselves, they are in a state of confusion and existential crisis.
16. In the same way that we can be horrified by the havoc caused by the development of a disease or disorder, we can also see them as something creative, because even when they destroy particular procedures, a particular way of doing things, they may force the system nervous to create other procedures and ways, which force him to an unexpected development and evolution
A positive mentality, despite the negative aspects of an illness, is the best way to face it.
17. The brain is much more dedicated to movement than the tongue. Language is only a little of what exists within this immense ocean of movement
There are things that we cannot express with words, but rather we must limit ourselves to feeling.
18. I have to live in the richest, deepest and most productive way I can.
When someone suffers from a disease like cancer, they learn to accept the immensity of life.
19. Personality change in temporal lobe epilepsy may be the most important key we have when it comes to deciphering the neurological systems that are the foundation of emotional forces that guide behavior
When the frontal lobe is affected due to an illness, the person’s personality changes.
20. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal on this beautiful planet, and this in itself has been an enormous privilege and an adventure.
Oliver Sacks considered himself a great person.
21. I feel like I should be trying to complete my life, whatever completing a life means.
A phrase he said once he found out he had cancer.
22. We each have a life story, whose continuity, whose meaning, is our own life.
Throughout our lives we form an image of ourselves that accompanies us throughout our lives.
23. I am a man of vehement disposition, with violent enthusiasms and lack of moderation in all my passions
Possibly, Sacks went so far professionally because of the passion he felt for what he did.
24. And, in its broadest sense, neural Darwinism implies that we are destined, whether we like it or not, to a life of uniqueness and self-development, to create our own individual paths through life
Our brain has an immense capacity to adapt.
25. All of us (with very few exceptions) can perceive music, tones, timbre, intervals, melodic contours, harmony and (perhaps in a mostly elemental way) rhythm. We integrate all of these things and “build” music in our minds using many different parts of the brain. And to this largely unconscious structural appreciation of music is added an often intense and profound emotional reaction.
This character was always interested in the relationship between music and the brain.
26. The power of music to integrate and heal… is quite fundamental. It is the deepest non-chemical medicine
The power of music is such that it is used as a form of therapy. This is what is known as music therapy.
27. Remembering is always rebuilding, not reproducing
Imagination and our perception of life significantly influence what we remember about events or happenings.
28. Empirical science, empiricism, does not take into account the soul, it does not take into account what constitutes and determines the personal self.
Excessive empiricism can leave aside some phenomena that are difficult to measure.
29. My religion is nature. This is what awakens feelings of wonder, mystique and gratitude in me.
Nature can surprise us many times, but it is gratifying to get lost in it.
30. Psychotic hallucinations, whether visual or auditory, seduce you, direct you, humiliate you, mock you… You can interact with them
People who suffer from hallucinations feel them as real, and perceive them as if they really exist.
31. We see with our eyes, but we see with our brain too. And seeing with the brain is often called imagination
If the area of the brain that is responsible for vision is affected, our vision will not be the same.
32. Many revolutions, transformations, awakenings are reactions to immediate (and unbearable) circumstances.
Many times, change occurs as a result of an unsustainable situation.
33. I must also remember that sex is one of those things – like religion and politics – capable of awakening intense and irrational feelings in otherwise decent and rational people.
Sex is one of the best experiences that human beings can feel.
34. I feel clear focus and sudden perspective. There is no time for anything inessential
Living in the present is the only thing we can experience unlike the present and the past.
35. In the examination of disease, we gain wisdom about anatomy, physiology, and biology. In the examination of the person with illness, we gain wisdom about life
When illness affects a person, they become more aware of their surroundings.
36. Any illness introduces duplicity into life: an “it”, with its own needs, demands and limitations.
Illness brings with it a different vision of life, something that we may not have stopped to reflect on.
37. Now I am face to face with death. But I’m not done with life
Sacks’ illness got the better of him, but at the time of saying this sentence he didn’t know it.
38. They are great survivors, and while dinosaurs came and went, ferns are still here
A reflection that speaks about the complexity of the mind.
39. The human being does not lack a mind, he is not mentally deficient, because he does not have language, but he is very seriously limited in the scope of his thought, in reality confined to an immediate, small world.
Language has a great effect on how we think and relate.
40. You can have feelings towards plants, although they probably don’t have feelings towards us.
Humans and plants are different, and plants cannot think because they do not have a brain.
41. No two people describe an event in the same way. None of them lie: they see things from different perspectives, they make their own associations, they have their own emotions.
Each person experiences life differently and interprets it based on their beliefs, expectations, schemas, etc.
42. To be ourselves we must have our life stories. We must “remember” ourselves, remember the inner drama, the narrative of ourselves. A man needs a continuous inner narrative, to maintain his identity, his self.
Memory is essential so that we can build our identity and a vision of the world.
43. I will almost certainly not witness my polonium birthday (number 84), nor would I want polonium around me, with its intense and murderous radioactivity
Sacks knew that his illness could cause his end, but he never lost faith.
44. I knew that music seemed to somehow overcome, at least for a few minutes, Parkinson’s disease, and freed them, allowed them free movement
Music has incredible therapeutic benefits even for those with Parkinson’s.
45. I have loved and been loved, I have received much and I have given something in return, I have read, and traveled, and thought, and written
A definition of what the life of Oliver Sacks was told by himself.
46. On three occasions I tried to be a serious scientist, but all three times it went terribly wrong and I could see the relief on my colleagues’ faces when they understood that I was giving up.
Despite these words, Sacks was a great scientific popularizer.
47. Remember that you can be old without being close to death
There are people who, despite not being advanced in age, feel older and do not enjoy their lives to the fullest.
48. It is easy to detect a lie with a detector or with physiological programming because lying is difficult. Telling the truth is easier, but if you leave aside the word truth, if you use the term believe, you will see, for example, that there are people who believe they have been abducted by aliens. And they are not lying, they are confused, which is different
You have to know how to differentiate between someone who intentionally lies and someone who believes they are telling the truth even though it is not true.
49. Being a patient forces one to think
When you feel sick, you can seriously reflect on what life is about.
50. Flexibility, resistance, and uncertainty, that kind of adventure, are in our nervous system, they are part of life
When he talks about the nervous system, he refers to our brain. That is to say, the reality we live in is his construction.
51. Everything that has a beginning must have an end
Unfortunately, everything that begins sooner or later ends.
52. Sometimes illness can teach us what is valuable about life and allow us to live it more intensely.
Cancer, without a doubt, made Oliver Sacks reflect deeply on his existence and what life is.
53. The disease must be studied with the sensitivity of a novelist
A quote that refers to the need to study pathologies with vigor.
54. I have had a relationship with the world, the special relationship between writers and readers
Throughout his life, Sacks did things of which he was very proud.
55. And, above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal on this beautiful planet and that, in itself, has been an enormous privilege and an adventure
Sensitivity was one of the characteristic features of this character.
56. I don’t know what I just did or where I came from right now… I can remember my past very well but I have no memory of my present
A phrase taken from his work “The man who mistook his wife for a hat.”
