Egon and Ann Diczfalusy Foundation

“Albert Einstein says that he has learned more from Fyodor Dostoevski than from all great physicists of the world...
...and I have learned more philosophy from my beloved quotations than from all textbooks of philosophy.”
- Egon Diczfalusy (2009)

 

“There is no proverb which is not true.”
- Cervantes, Don Quixote

 

“Why is Medical Science the most important one? Because - as Albert Einstein says - «The creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind»”

 

“Science is a dialogue between mankind and nature, the results of which have been unpredictable.”
- Ilya Prigogine: The end of certainty (1997)

 

“Progress is the way of life...
I have graduated from the Medical Faculty of the University of Szeged in 1944, more than 60 years ago. Compared to our colleagues from Salerno nine hundred years before, how much more medicine did we know than they; and how very little, compared to the medical knowledge of today!”
- Egon Diczfalusy (2006)

 

“Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.”
- Sir Karl Popper in British Philosophy in the Mid-Century (1957) (ed. C.A.Mace)

 

“Science without religion is lame, Religion without science is blind.”
- Albert Einstein: Science, Philosophy and Religion, A Symposium (1941), Ch. 13

 

“In my lifetime, I have seen more progress in  science, than  all  scientists of  all preceding periods together since the dawn of history. I profoundly believe that without medical science life would be a mistake...”
- Egon Diczfalusy

 

“Most drugs used today by millions and millions of fellow-men and women have been developed in our lifetime and many more are in the coming...
«What is past is prologue»”
- William Shakespeare: The Tempest, II., i.261

 

“The nature of science is self-correcting: «DIES DIEM DOCET» (one day teaches the other)
and
each generation continues and improves the achievements of the preceding one.”
- Publilius Syrus (cca. 100 A.D.) / Egon Diczfalusy

 

“To every new epoch in history belongs a new spiritual and philosophical content and I think that the philosophical content of the 21st century will be anthropocentric; it will place focus on human creativity and on ethical issues emanating from it. It will also deconstruct the old deterministic worldview.”
- Egon Diczfalusy (1994)

 

“What is Anthropocene?
It is a neologism coined in the year 2000 by Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen to indicate the most recent period in the life of the Earth, when – for the first time - the impact of human activities on the environment reached the same dimensions as natural forces.”

 

“Homo sapiens in the anthropocene epoch.
For the first time in history, homo sapiens is significantly changing his Earth, his environment, and his own development. Will he be able to do it in a responsible way? In fact, how sapiens is homo sapiens today?”
- Egon Diczfalusy

 

“800 lifespans can bridge more than 50 000 year
But of these 800 people, 650 spent their lives in caves or worse; only the last 70 had any truly effective means of communicating with one another; only the last 6 ever saw a printed word or had any real means of measuring heat or cold; only the last 4 could measure time with any precision; only the last 2 used an electric motor; and the vast majority of the items that make up our material world were developed within the lifespan of the 800th person.”
- R.L. Lesher and G.J. Howick (1966)

 

“Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that happen to a man.”
- L. Trotsky: Diary in Exile (1935)

 

“Aging is one of the major achievements of this century. Yet it is so often approached not as an achievement, but as a problem, the «tidal wave that is going to swamp us all»”
- Alex Kalache (Paris, 2000)

 

“No man loves life like him that´s growing old.”
- Sophokles (496-406 BC) - Acrisius, Fragment 64

 

“François de la Rochefoucauld in 1664 tells us, that when we grow old we become more stupid and more wise at the same time. He carefully avoids mentioning the comparative aspects. One can always hope that the relationship between these two properties will be 50/50 and not 99 to 1.”
- Egon Diczfalusy (2009)

 

“In my lifetime I have seen the birth of ANOTHER TWO WORLDS, equal in numbers, needs, aspirations, hopes and dreams.”
- Egon Diczfalusy

 

“All projections are uncertain, but some of them are less uncertain than others.”
- Egon Diczfalusy

 

“Quo vadimus?
Never before have birth-rates fallen so far, so fast, so low, for so long around the world. The potential implications – environmental, economic, geopolitical and personal – are both unclear and clearly monumental, for good and for ill.”
- Ben J. Wattenberg: The Population Explotion is Over in New York Times Magazine (November 23, 1997) Sunday Late Edition

 

“Need for Institutional Reform
Many of our Institutions are in crisis, because they are catering for for the needs of yesteryear; for a population structure that doesn’t exist any more.”
- Egon Diczfalusy (2009)

 

“Given the rising proportions of the elderly in the population and the increasingly effective and expensive technologies that will be applicable to them, we are at the edge of a new and endless frontier of ethical inquiry.”
- D. Callahan (1988)

 

“So what is the problem? Money, money, money and poverty, poverty and poverty...”
- Egon Diczfalusy (2009)

 

“Question: BUT WHAT CAN I DO?
Answer: NOBODY KNOWS WHAT HE CAN DO TILL HE TRIES.”
- Publilius Syrus (Maxims 786)

 

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
- Margaret Mead: Quoted by The Goldman Environmental Foundation (The Herald Tribune - April 20, 1998)

 

 

“Happiness is the only thing we can give others without having it ourselves.”
- Queen Elisabeth II.

 

“Money doesn’t make you happy, but giving it away for a good purpose helps a great deal.”
- Egon Diczfalusy (2009)

 

“Whenever you do good for others, perhaps only 2% of them will remember and be grateful. However, the greatfulness of that 2% may change your life.”
- Egon Diczfalusy (2009)

 

“It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is sin.”
- Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays (1894-1984) - president of Morehouse College (1940-1967)

 

“Fatelo bene per viverlo bene! (Do good and live well!)”
- Egon Diczfalusy (2009)

 

“Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday.”
- Egon Diczfalusy MD, PhD, DSc, Dr.h.c. (mult.) FRCOG (ad eundem), FACOG (hon.), Professor emeritus, Karolinska Institutet Stockholm (Sweden)

 

“One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been.”
- Sophokles (496-406 BC): AJAX

 

“Years mature into fruit so that some small seeds of moments may outlive them.”
- Rabindranath Tagore on visiting Yale University (1932)

 

“... The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.”
- T.S. Eliot: East Coker

 

“Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.”
- Kahlil Gibran: The Prophet (1923)

 

“Like Ervin Washington, I am always at loss to know how much to believe of my own stories.”
- Egon Diczfalusy (2009)

 

“Was morbidity always higher among women than among men?
Unfortunately, Yes!”

 

“In my dream I have seen the ghost of Trotula de Ruggiero (1050-1097) appearing from a burning bush and saying: «My son, history has maltreated me!» Not even God can change the past, only historians can.”
- Egon Diczfalusy (2009)

 

“Trotula de Ruggiero (Trotula of Salerno, 1050-1097) author of the first textbook of Obst. & Gyn., entitled «De passionibus mulierum ante in et post partum» (from a manuscipt from the late 12th or early 13th century). It is also the first textbook ever written for teaching medical sciences!”

“Then Mother Trottola raised her voice: «My son, this is my legacy I command you that - for the first time in history - exceed your allotted speaking time and tell all our friends in the Serbian Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology that their unique historical role has also been falsified by historians. They made us all believe that Obst. & Gyn. is a profession only for men possessing great physical strength sometimes combined with limited intellectual power.»”

“Tell your friends that Obst. & Gyn. is a profession for women and men with exceptional intellectual talent and great empathy; it is the alpha and omega of all medical science and the key of all human development.”

 

“Anyone who keeps the ability to see BEAUTY never grows old.”
- Franz Kafka

 

“Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it and wiser than the one that comes after it.”
- George Orwell

 

“I am not a pessimist. I am not an optimist. I am simply confused.”
- Egon Diczfalusy (1987)

 

“... I have heard people saying that if you are not confused in these modern times you are not well informed.”
- Egon Diczfalusy

 

“Fate il bene e fatelo bene. (Do well and do good !)”

 

“Fatelo bene per viverlo bene! (Do good and live well!)”
- Egon Diczfalusy (2009)