Oliver Sacks - Man Quotes

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Astounded—and indifferent—for he was a man who, in effect, had no 'day before'.

Oliver Sacks

And so was Luria, whose words now came back to me: 'A man does not consist of memory alone. He has feeling, will, sensibility, moral being... It is here... you may touch him, and see a profound change.' Memory, mental activity, mind alone, could not hold him; but moral attention and action could hold him completely.

Oliver Sacks

To be ourselves we must have ourselves – possess, if need be re-possess, our life-stories. We must recollect ourselves, recollect the inner drama, the narrative, of ourselves. A man needs such a narrative, a continuous inner narrative, to maintain his identity, his self.

Oliver Sacks

But the saddest difference between them was that Zazetsky, as Luria said, 'fought to regain his lost faculties with the indomitable tenacity of the damned,' whereas Dr P. was not fighting, did not know what was lost. But who was more tragic, or who was more damned — the man who knew it, or the man who did not?

Oliver Sacks

I am a man of vehement disposition, with violent enthusiasms, and extreme immoderation in all my passions.

Oliver Sacks