If the unexamined life was not worth living, was the unlived life worth examining?
―Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air
Years ago it had occurred to me that…
Years ago, it had occurred to me that Darwin and Nietzsche agreed on one thing: the defining characteristic of the organism is striving.
―Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air
The physician’s duty is not to stave off…
The physician’s duty is not to stave off death or return patients to their old lives, but to take into our arms a patient and family whose lives have disintegrated and work until they can stand back up and face, and make sense of, their own existence.
―Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air
Science may provide the most useful way to…
Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving, suffering, virtue.
―Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air
Infinity is the mathematical possibility that can make…
Infinity is the mathematical possibility that can make miracles happen.