I rejoice when I meet gifted young people... I feel the future is in good hands.
Interpretation
The quote expresses optimism and hope for the future through the potential of young, talented individuals.
In this quote, Oliver Sacks conveys his belief that encountering talented young people brings him joy, as it reassures him that the future is promising. He recognizes the vitality and creativity that youth can bring to society, suggesting that their gifts and abilities will shape a better world ahead.
In practice
A motivational speech at a youth conference.
There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate - the genetic and neural fate - of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.
In general, people are afraid to acknowledge hallucinations because they immediately see them as a sign of something awful happening to the brain, whereas in most cases they're not.
Dr. Kertesz mentioned to me a case known to him of a farmer who had developed prosopagnosia and in consequence could no longer distinguish (the faces of) his cows, and of another such patient, an attendant in a Natural History Museum, who mistook his own reflection for the diorama of an ape
Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears - it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear. But for many of my neurological patients, music is even more - it can provide access, even when no medication can, to movement, to speech, to life. For them, music is not a luxury, but a necessity.
We see with the eyes, but we see with the brain as well. And seeing with the brain is often called imagination.
If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost a self—himself—he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it.
Days are expensive. When you spend a day you have one less day to spend. So make sure you spend each one wisely.
Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?
Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust.
Believe nothing because it is written in books. Believe nothing because wise men say it is so. Believe nothing because it is religious doctrine. Believe it only because you yourself know it to be true.
It's very easy to walk on a wire if you spend a whole lifetime practicing for it.
Once a fight has started, if you get involved in thinking about what to do, you will be cut down by your opponent with the very next blow.
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