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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index R > Charles Richet Quotes

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Charles Richet
(26 Aug 1850 - 3 Dec 1935)

French physiologist, bacteriologist and bacteriologist who was awarded the 1913 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. He coined the term 'anaphylaxis.'


Science Quotes by Charles Richet (4 quotes)

I never said it was possible. I only said it was true.
— Charles Richet
Science quotes on:  |  Never (1089)  |  Possible (560)  |  Truth (1109)

I possess every good quality, but the one that distinguishes me above all is modesty.
— Charles Richet
from The Natural History of a Savant, trans. Oliver Lodge (1927).
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Good (906)  |  Modesty (18)  |  Possess (157)  |  Quality (139)

My amateur interest in astronomy brought out the term “magnitude,” which is used for the brightness of a star.
— Charles Richet
From interview with Henry Spall, as in an abridged version of Earthquake Information Bulletin (Jan-Feb 1980), 12, No. 1, that is on the USGS website.
Science quotes on:  |  Amateur (22)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Brightness (12)  |  Classification (102)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Interest (416)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Richter Scale (4)  |  Star (460)  |  Term (357)

The living being is stable. It must be so in order not to be destroyed, dissolved, or disintegrated by the colossal forces, often adverse, which surround it. By apparent contradiction it maintains its stability only if it is excitable and capable of modifying itself according to external stimuli and adjusting its response to the stimulation. In a sense it is stable because it is modifiable—the slight instability is the necessary condition for the true stability of the organism.
— Charles Richet
In Dictionnaire de Physiologie (1900), Vol. 4, 72. English as quoted in Walter Bradford Cannon, The Wisdom of the Body (1932), 21, with French source citation footnoted on 26.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Adjust (11)  |  Adverse (3)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biology (232)  |  Capable (174)  |  Colossal (15)  |  Condition (362)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Destroyed (2)  |  External (62)  |  Force (497)  |  Instability (4)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Modify (15)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Order (638)  |  Organism (231)  |  Response (56)  |  Sense (785)  |  Stability (28)  |  Stable (32)  |  Stimulation (18)  |  Stimulus (30)


See also:
  • 26 Aug - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Richet's birth.

Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
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