Quotes from The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

“In 1982 President Ronald Reagan called for a war on drugs: by 1990 more men were in federal prisons on drug charges alone than had comprised the entire 1980 federal prison population for all crimes combined.”
― quote from The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

“In 1980 the Latin American nations collectively were receiving from their external creditors—major banks, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank—about $11 billion more than they were losing in capital transfers back to wealthy-nation interests. But by 1985 these nations would be losing $35 billion more a year in capital transfers to North America and Europe than they received in loans and investments.41”
― quote from The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

“Only mosquito can save Nigeria. Only mosquito can save South Africa. Only mosquito can save Zimbabwe Only mosquito can save Namibia. Only mosquito can save Africa. Only malaria can save Africa. Only yellow fever can save Africa.”
― quote from The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

“According to official Soviet statistics submitted to the World Health Organization in the 1970s, virtually every imaginable infectious disease was on the decline or had disappeared, thanks to communist policies. It was widely believed in international health circles at the time that these statistics were wholly fabricated. 9”
― quote from The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

“Consider the difference in size between some of the very tiniest and the very largest creatures on Earth. A small bacterium weights as little as 0.00000000001 gram. A blue whale weighs about 100,000,000 grams. Yet a bacterium can kill a whale … . Such is the adaptability and versatility of microorganisms as compared with humans and other so-called “higher” organisms, that they will doubtless continue to colonise and alter the face of the Earth long after we and the rest of our cohabitants have left the stage forever. Microbes, not macrobes, rule the world. —Bernard Dixon, 1994”
― quote from The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

“The city of Strasbourg alone savagely slew 16,000 of its Jewish residents, blaming them for spreading the Black Death.10”
― quote from The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

“A new global iatrogenic form of malaria was emerging—“iatrogenic” meaning created as a result of medical treatment. In its well-meaning zeal to treat the world’s malaria scourge, humanity had created a new epidemic.”
― quote from The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

“Besides, there wasn’t much the lab could tell a physician in 1940 that a well-trained, observant doctor couldn’t determine independently.”
― quote from The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

Popular quotes

“To hell with the truth! As the history of the world proves, the truth has no bearing on anything. It's irrelevant and immaterial, as the lawyers say. The lie of a pipe dream is what gives life to the whole misbegotten mad lot of us, drunk or sober.”
― Eugene O'Neill, quote from The Iceman Cometh

“And, in fine, of false sciences I thought I knew the worth sufficiently to escape being deceived by the professions of an alchemist, the predictions of an astrologer, the impostures of a magician, or by the artifices and boasting of any of those who profess to know things of which they are ignorant.”
― René Descartes, quote from Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy

“There is a fundamental tension between science and freedom - no matter how science is viewed by its practitioners nor how freedom is sensed by those who believe they have it.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from The Dosadi Experiment

“In the spring of the year that I was supposed to be married, a comet launched itself over the skies of my village. It was brighter than any comet we had ever seen, and more evil. Night after night, as it crawled across our skies spraying its cold white seeds of sorrow, we tried to decipher the fearsome messages of the stars.”
― Anita Amirrezvani, quote from The Blood of Flowers

“You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from The Captain's Verses

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.