Paul Farmer Quotes

• Civil and political rights are critical, but not often the real problem for the destitute sick. My patients in Haiti can now vote but they can’t get medical care or clean water.

  Paul Farmer

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Haitians

• Again, conventional Catholicism does not much appeal to me.

  Paul Farmer

  Tags in Appeal, Conventional

• But as for activism, my parents did what they could, given the constraints, but were never involved in the causes I think of when I think of activists.

  Paul Farmer

  Tags in Activist, Constraints

• For me, an area of moral clarity is: you’re in front of someone who’s suffering and you have the tools at your disposal to alleviate that suffering or even eradicate it, and you act.

  Paul Farmer

  Topics in Suffering

• I critique market-based medicine not because I haven’t seen its heights but because I’ve seen its depths.

  Paul Farmer

  Tags in Depths, Heights

• I recommend the same therapies for all humans with HIV. There is no reason to believe that physiologic responses to therapy will vary across lines of class, culture, race or nationality.

  Paul Farmer

  Tags in Nationality, Therapies

• I think we will see better vaccines within the next 15 years, but I’m not a scientist and am focused on the short-term – what will happen in the interim.

  Paul Farmer

  Tags in Interim, Short Term, Vaccines

• I would say that, intellectually, Catholicism had no more impact on me than did social theory.

  Paul Farmer

  Tags in Catholicism, Theory

• I’m not an austere person.

  Paul Farmer

  Tags in Austere

• I’m one of six kids, and the eight of us lived for over a decade in either a bus or a boat.

  Paul Farmer

  Tags in Decade, Boat, Bus

• I’ve been impressed, over the last 15 years, with how often the somewhat conspiratorial comments of Haitian villagers have been proven to be correct when the historical record is probed carefully.

  Paul Farmer

  Tags in Haitians, Conspiratorial

• It is clear that the pharmaceutical industry is not, by any stretch of the imagination, doing enough to ensure that the poor have access to adequate medical care.

  Paul Farmer

  Tags in Access, Pharmaceutical

• Since I do not believe that there should be different recommendations for people living in the Bronx and people living in Manhattan, I am uncomfortable making different recommendations for my patients in Boston and in Haiti.

  Paul Farmer

  Tags in Recommendations, Haiti

• The human rights community has focused very narrowly on political and civil rights for many decades, and with reason, but now we have to ask how can we broaden the view.

  Paul Farmer

  Tags in Broaden, Narrowly

• The only way to do the human rights thing is to do the right thing medically.

  Paul Farmer

  Tags in Med, Human Rights

• We’ve taken on the major health problems of the poorest – tuberculosis, maternal mortality, AIDS, malaria – in four countries. We’ve scored some victories in the sense that we’ve cured or treated thousands and changed the discourse about what is possible.

  Paul Farmer

  Tags in Maternal, Malaria, Health Problems

• The only real nation is humanity.

  Paul Farmer

  Topics in Humanity

  Tags in Interdependence, Patriotism, Globalism

Paul Farmer (37)

Birth:	26th October, 1959
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Anthropologist, Physician

Related Authors

• Kathy Reichs
• Ernest Becker
• Dian Fossey
• Pierre Bourdieu
• Gustave Le Bon
• William Ury
• Carlos Barrios
• Hugh Brody
• Sir James George Frazer
• Ruth Benedict

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 31st March

Births

• 1812 - Thomas Gold Appleton
• 1972 - Alejandro Amenabar
• 1944 - Mick Ralphs
• 1911 - Robert Hamer
• 1916 - Tommy Bolt

Deaths

• 1998 - Tim Flock
• 2002 - Barry Took
• 1976 - Paul Strand
• 1931 - Knute Rockne
• 1894 - William Robertson Smith