QUOTES BY Jonas Salk

Edward R. Murrow: Who owns the patent on this vaccine? Jonas Salk: Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?

It is courage based on confidence, not daring, and it is confidence based on experience.

I feel that the greatest reward for doing is the opportunity to do more.

Nothing happens quite by chance. It's a question of accretion of information and experience … it's just chance that I happened to be here at this particular time when there was available and at my disposal the great experience of all the investigators who plodded along for a number of years.

Neither wisdom nor good will is now dominant. Hope lies in dreams, in imagination and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality.

Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.

I have dreams, and I have nightmares. I overcame the nightmares because of my dreams.

I couldn't possibly have become a member of this institute if I hadn't founded it myself.

Richard Heffner: You say "We can create ourselves and our future" Salk: — by shaping our selves not our cells — thats the important distinction. … We are shaping our cells, but we will not change our selves in the course of shaping our cells.

There is something about human nature that has to be understood, and so … I've shifted my attention from an interest in unity to an interest in creativity.

I already see enough evidence for this optimism … in recent years I find that perhaps what Im seeking is a scientific basis for hope, and I think I've found it.

As a child I was not interested in science. I was merely interested in things human, the human side of nature, if you like, and I continue to be interested in that. That's what motivates me.