Eccles Quotes & Sayings

Do you know why I love mathematics?"
"Because it blew your mind for free when you couldn't get drugs?"
Eccles snorted in surprise. "Well, yes, but there's another reason. — Brendan Halpin

We regard promissory materialism as superstition without a rational foundation. The more we discover about the brain, the more clearly do we distinguish between the brain events and the mental phenomena, and the more wonderful do both the brain events and the mental phenomena become. Promissory materialism is simply a religious belief held by dogmatic materialists ... who often confuse their religion with their science. — John C. Eccles

The last thing that man will understand in nature is the performance of his brain. — John Eccles

I can state with complete assurance that for each of us our brains form the material basis of our experiences and memories, our imaginations, our dreams. — John Eccles

Brain research is the ultimate problem confronting man. — John Eccles

Detective Inspector Eccles sighed. He may ordinarily have met his sigh with the question of why the newly appointed Superintendent Dickinson was turning up to this late hour crime scene, he may also ordinarily question why his superior officer was dressed as Julius Caesar, in full tunic and green leafy wreath, yet ever since the new and youngest-ever-appointed superintendent had arrived at the Met it had been all too clear he was an officer who didn't quite do things by the eBook. — Tom Conrad

I am passionately devoted to the study of life, and particularly to the higher forms of life. — John Eccles

A better understanding of the brain is certain to lead man to a richer comprehension both of himself, of his fellow man, and of society, and in fact of the whole world with its problems. — John Eccles

I decided, as a medical student, to devote myself to a study of the brain. — John Eccles

How we come to be, and how we are what we are, is beyond any understanding. I have been obsessed by this, trying to understand the very nature of my existence. — John Eccles

If the ills of humanity were caused by culture, they could certainly be cured in no way other than by culture.4 But the ills we have in mind are native to the human heart, which always remains the same, and culture only brings them out. With all its wealth and power, it only shows that the human heart, in which God has put eternity [Eccles. 3:11], is so huge that all the world is too small to satisfy it. Human beings are in search of another and better redemption than culture can give them. They are looking for lasting happiness, an enduring eternal good. They are thirsting for a redemption that saves them physically as well as spiritually, for time but also for eternity. — Anonymous

I came to realise that Darwinian evolution had no explanation of me as an experiencing self. — John Eccles

Science and religion are very much alike. Both are imaginative and creative aspects of the human mind. The appearance of a conflict is a result of ignorance. We come to exist through a divine act. That divine guidance is a theme throughout our life; at our death the brain goes, but that divine guidance and love continues. Each of us is a unique, conscious being, a divine creation. It is the religious view. It is the only view consistent with all the evidence. — John Eccles

Many people, including myself, had our scientific lives changed by the inspiring new vision of science that Popper gave us. — John Eccles

In order that a "self" may exist there must be some continuity of mental experiences and, particularly, continuity bridging gaps of unconsciousness. For example, the continuity of our "self" is resumed after sleep, anaesthesia, and the temporary amnesias of concussion and convulsions. — John Eccles

O, Lord, You have made everything beautiful in Your time. You have also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet we cannot fathom what You have done from beginning to end. (Eccles. 3:11) — Beth Moore

Our Lord humbled without humiliation His lofty station which yet could not be humbled, and condescends to His servants, with a condescension ineffable and incomprehensible. God being perfect becomes perfect man, and brings to perfection the newest of all new things (cf. Eccles 1:10), the only new thing under the sun, through which the boundless might of God is manifested. For what greater thing is there than that God should become man? — John Of Damascus

We and our fellow men of all countries must realize that we share this wonderful, beautiful, salubrious earth as brothers and that there never will be anywhere else to go. — John Eccles

One of Sherrington's greatest pupils, Sir John Eccles, held similar views. Eccles won a Nobel Prize for his seminal contributions to our understanding of how nerve cells communicate across synapses, or nerve junctions. In his later years, he worked toward a deeper understanding of the mechanisms mediating the interaction of mind and brain-including the elusive notion of free will. Standard neurobiology tells us that tiny vesicles in the nerve endings contain chemicals called neurotransmitters; in response to an electrical impulse, some of the vesicles release their contents, which cross the synapse and transmit the impulse to the adjoining neuron. In 1986 Eccles proposed that the probability of neurotransmitter release depended on quantum mechanical processes, which can be influenced by the intervention of the mind. This, Eccles said, provided a basis for the action of a free will. — Jeffrey M. Schwartz

I reckon silence more profitable than speech, for? in the words of the Preacher, 'The words of wise men are heard in quiet' (Eccles. 9:17). — Saint Basil

A board constituted as the board of Sydney Hospital is constituted is not a suitable body to have control of an institute of medical research. — John Eccles

I believe that there is a fundamental mystery in my existence, transcending any biological account of the development of my body (including my brain) with its genetic inheritance and its evolutionary origin ... I cannot believe that this wonderful gift of a conscious existence has no further future, no possibility of another existence under some other unimaginable conditions. — John Eccles

The origin of each of us stems from codes of genetic inheritance. — John Eccles

I can explain my body and my brain, but there's something more. I can't explain my own existence - what makes me a unique human being. — John Eccles

To the extent that we have a better understanding of the brain, we will have a richer appreciation of ourselves, of our fellow men and of society and, in fact, of the whole world and its problems. — John Eccles

As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption, mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth ... to provide men with buying power ... Instead of achieving that kind of distribution, a giant suction pump had by 1929-30 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth ... The other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped. — Marriner Stoddard Eccles

Changes in relative ionic concentration across the postsynaptic membrane are readily effected by altering the ionic composition of the external medium. — John Eccles

Waiter, why on earth is there a footprint on my pie? You did ask me to step on it, sir. — Jane Eccles

ran - at separate times - a boutique investment banking firm and a small mortgage company. He served as the Treasurer for the multinational vitamin manufacturer USANA Health Sciences years before becoming CFO for MonaVie. Devin squeezed in two brief stints in government, including two years working for Jake Garn on the U.S. Senate Banking Committee Staff and another year working for an independent state agency called USTAR, where he helped foster technology entrepreneurship during Governor Jon Huntsman's administration. Devin is proud to be a Ute, having graduated from the University of Utah David Eccles School of Business, which recognized him as a Distinguished Alum in 2006. He also earned an MBA at Cornell University where he ran the student newspaper, Cornell Business. — Devin D. Thorpe

Frosty winter evenings, patterns of ice forming on the window panes outside, fresh coal piled on the red embers, and the fire spurting sulphurous flames of blue and green. — Marjorie Eccles

To the brains of our predecessors we owe all of our inheritance of civilization and culture. — John Eccles

I, at the age of 17 or 18 as a medical student, suddenly came up against a problem: 'What am I? What is the meaning of my existence as I experience it?' — John Eccles

England was a delightful and stimulating place for a young academic, although by present standards, the laboratory facilities were primitive. There were almost no research grants and no secretarial assistance, even for Sherrington. — John Eccles

The body and dendrites of a nerve cell are specialized for the reception and integration of information which is conveyed as impulses that are fired from other nerve cells along their axons. — John Eccles

I maintain that the human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reductionism, with its claim in promissory materialism to account eventually for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This belief must be classed as a superstition ... we have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world. — John C. Eccles