Joseph Murray Quotes

#1. My only wish would be to have 10 more lives to live on this planet. If that were possible, I'd spend one lifetime each in embryology, genetics, physics, astronomy and geology. The other lifetimes would be as a pianist, backwoodsman, tennis player, or writer for the 'National Geographic.'

Joseph Murray

#2. Animal experimentation has been essential to the development of all cardiac surgery, transplantation surgery, joint replacements and all vaccinations.

Joseph Murray

#3. I've never regretted a swim

Joseph Murray

#4. Kidney transplants seem so routine now. But the first one was like Lindbergh's flight across the ocean.

Joseph Murray

#5. The slow rejection of the foreign skin grafts fascinated me. How could the host distinguish another person's skin from his own?

Joseph Murray

#6. It's the best time ever to be a doctor because you can heal and treat conditions that were untreatable even a few years ago.

Joseph Murray

#7. I wanted to be a surgeon, possibly influenced by the qualities of our family doctor who cared for our childhood ailments.

Joseph Murray

#8. At heart, I'm a reconstructive surgeon.

Joseph Murray

#9. If you're going to worry about what people say, you're never going to make any progress.

Joseph Murray

#10. Stem cells are probably going to be extremely useful.

Joseph Murray

#11. One of my surgical giant friends had in his operating room a sign "If the operation is difficult, you aren't doing it right." What he meant was, you have to plan every operation You cannot ever be casual You have to realize that any operation is a potential fatality.

Joseph Murray

#12. You cannot stop the human mind from working.

Joseph Murray

#13. Service to society is the rent we pay for living on this planet.

Joseph Murray

#14. Blanket objection is not very reasonable to me - any effort to control scientific advances is doomed to fail.

Joseph Murray