Burnet Quotes & Sayings

The dreamer dies, but never dies the dream — Dana Burnet

In the country, a semicircle is the shortest line between two points. — Dana Burnet

The production of antibody is not the only, nor I believe the most important, manifestation of immunity, but for reasons both historical and of experimental convenience, antibody is likely to remain the touchstone of immunological theory. — Frank Macfarlane Burnet

The Duke of Buckingham gave me once a short but severe character of the two brothers. It was the more severe, because it was true: the King (he said) could see things if he would, and the Duke would see things if he could. — Gilbert Burnet

The law of England is the greatest grievance of the nation, very expensive and dilatory. — Gilbert Burnet

Human insulin differs from other mammalian types by having a different C-terminal amino acid on the B chain. The immunological difference between beef insulin and human insulin, which is presumably responsible for the antigenicity of the former in some human beings, is thus limited to very a small portion of the whole molecule. — Frank Macfarlane Burnet

The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover, Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank, Conceives by idleness, and nothing teems But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burrs, Losing both beauty and utility. — William Shakespeare

There is no lasting pleasure but contemplation; all others grow flat and insipid upon frequent use; and when a man hath run through a set of vanities, in the declension of his age, he knows not what to do with himself, if he cannot think; he saunters about from one dull business to another, to wear out time; and hath no reason to value Life but because he is afraid of death. — Gilbert Burnet

I overcome failure by doing it again and trying not to make the same mistake. — Guy Burnet

If I want to gain weight, I can gain weight. If I want to lose weight, I will lose weight. If I want to be fit, I'll be fit. — Guy Burnet

What a rude Lump our World is that we are so apt to dote upon, — Thomas Burnet

One of the strangest catastrophes that is in any history. A great king, with strong armies and mighty fleets, a great treasure and powerful allies, fell all at once, and his whole strength, like a spider's web, was ... irrecoverably broken at a touch. — Gilbert Burnet

Gray sail against the sky, Gray butterfly! Have you a dream for going. Or are you the blind wind's blowing? — Dana Burnet

Today and always, there will be an obligation to pass on to the new generation the tradition of liberal scholarship - scientific or in the humanities - and to bring the understanding of things and human actions to everyone. — Frank Macfarlane Burnet

How do I stay balanced? On my two feet. — Guy Burnet

The main problem facing a parasite over the long term, Burnet noted, is the issue of transmission: how to spread its offspring from one individual host to another. Various methods and traits have developed toward that simple end, ranging from massive replication, airborne dispersal, environmentally resistant life-history stages (like the small form of C. burnetii), direct transfer in blood and other bodily fluids, behavioral influence on the host (as exerted by the rabies virus, for instance, causing infected animals to bite), passage through intermediate or amplifier hosts, and the use of insect and arachnid vectors as means of transportation and injection. — David Quammen

Sir Peter Medawar, an eminent British biologist who received a Nobel Prize the same year as Macfarlane Burnet, defined a virus as a piece of bad news wrapped up in a protein. — David Quammen

I can see no hope at present of such a vaccine being produced ... I have adopted a frankly defeatist attitude towards the problem of poliomyelitis and I hope that future developments will prove me wrong ... No means of controlling poliomyelitis is at present visible. — Frank Macfarlane Burnet

I like to think that when Medawar and his colleagues showed that immunological tolerance could be produced experimentally the new immunology was born. This is a science which to me has far greater potentialities both for practical use in medicine and for the better understanding of living process than the classical immunochemistry which it is incorporating and superseding. — Frank Macfarlane Burnet

It serves no purpose to man if there is no room for repentance, and he who is tormented can never grow better ... let this punishment be severe, let it be bitter, nay let it be lasting, but let it at length have an end ... — Thomas Burnet

I started acting pretty much by accident. I was doing read-throughs for a playwright who I was assisting, and then an agency saw me and said they wanted to represent me and get with me through my training and so on and so forth. It was pretty much by chance. — Guy Burnet

I'd rather have an inch of a dog than miles of pedigree. — Dana Burnet

I had come out of the city, where story-telling is a manufactured science, to the country where story-telling is a by-product of life. — Dana Burnet

I can easily believe, that there are more invisible than visible beings in the universe. — Thomas Burnet

Learning chiefly in mathematical sciences can so swallow up and fix one's thought, as to possess it entirely for some time; but when that amusement is over, nature will return, and be where it was, being rather diverted than overcome by such speculations. — Gilbert Burnet

Tis a dangerous thing to ingage the authority of Scripture in disputes about the Natural World, in opposition to Reason; lest Time, which brings all things to light, should discover that to be evidently false which we had made Scripture to assert. — Thomas Burnet

Those herbs which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but, being trodden upon and crushed, are three; that is, burnet, wild thyme and watermints. Therefore, you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread. — Francis Bacon

On November 5 he landed at Torbay, on the coast of Devon. Reminded that it was the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, he remarked to Burnet, What do you think of Predestination now? — Winston S. Churchill

If I'm playing a fat person, then I actually eat a lot of cakes and as much as I can. If I'm playing a person in shape, then I'll increase my intensity of boxing training. It's really dependent. It kind of allows me to take whatever specific character I want. — Guy Burnet

I guess, the hardest obstacles I've had to overcome in my life are deaths of people close to me. — Guy Burnet

An anecdote is related of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper (1621-1683), who, in speaking of religion, said, "People differ in their discourse and profession about these matters, but men of sense are really but of one religion." To the inquiry of "What religion?" the Earl said, "Men of sense never tell it." — Gilbert Burnet

Let us be adventurers for another world. It is at least a fair and noble chance; and there is nothing in this worth our thoughts or our passions. If we should be disappointed, we are still no worse than the rest of our fellow-mortals; and if we succeed in our expectations we are eternally happy. — Gilbert Burnet

For the most part the worst instructed, and the least knowing of any of their rank, I ever went amongst. — Gilbert Burnet

One man can no more see into the mind of another than he can see inside a stone... — Graeme Macrae Burnet

I can see no practical application of molecular biology to human affairs ... DNA is a tangled mass of linear molecules in which the informational content is quite inaccessible. — Frank Macfarlane Burnet

A poor old Widow in her weeds
Sowed her garden with wild-flower seeds;
Not too shallow, and not too deep,
And down came April -- drip -- drip -- drip.
Up shone May, like gold, and soon
Green as an arbour grew leafy June.
And now all summer she sits and sews
Where willow herb, comfrey, bugloss blows,
Teasle and pansy, meadowsweet,
Campion, toadflax, and rough hawksbit;
Brown bee orchis, and Peals of Bells;
Clover, burnet, and thyme she smells;
Like Oberon's meadows her garden is
Drowsy from dawn to dusk with bees.
Weeps she never, but sometimes sighs,
And peeps at her garden with bright brown eyes;
And all she has is all she needs --
A poor Old Widow in her weeds. — Walter De La Mare

You do research into specific occupations of the character, with specific behaviorisms that their daily life might give them. You do as much research as you want, as you can. Now that you have such open access to the Internet, it's very easy to do so. — Guy Burnet

The idea of man as the dominant mammal of the earth whose whole behaviour tends to be dominated by his own desire for dominance gripped me. It seemed to explain almost everything, and I applied it to everything. — Frank Macfarlane Burnet

Serum albumin is a well-defined protein, but no laboratory has yet attempted to ascertain its full chemical structure. — Frank Macfarlane Burnet

To advance science is highly honourable, and I believe the institution of the Nobel Prizes has done much to raise the prestige of scientific discovery. — Frank Macfarlane Burnet

You English words?
I know you:
You are light as dreams,
Tough as oak,
Precious as gold,
As poppies and corn,
Or an old cloak:
Sweet as our birds
To the ear,
As the burnet rose
In the heat
Of Midsummer — Edward Thomas

Most bacteriologists were trained as medical men - Burnet himself had been, before going into bacteriological research - and "their interest in general biological problems was very limited." They cared about curing and preventing diseases, which was well and good; less so about pondering infection as a biological phenomenon, a relationship between creatures, equal in fundamental importance to such other relationships as predation, competition, and decomposition. — David Quammen