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Top 20 John M. Barry Quotes (2025 Update)

John M. Barry Quote: “Certainty creates strength. Certainty gives one something upon which to lean. Uncertainty creates weakness. Uncertainty makes one tentative if not fearful, and tentative steps, even when in the right direction, may not overcome significant obstacles.”

1. “Certainty creates strength. Certainty gives one something upon which to lean. Uncertainty creates weakness. Uncertainty makes one tentative if not fearful, and tentative steps, even when in the right direction, may not overcome significant obstacles.”

— John M. Barry

John M. Barry Quote: “In fact, biology is chaos. Biological systems are the product not of logic but of evolution, an inelegant process. Life does not choose the logically best design to meet a new situation. It adapts what already exists... The result, unlike the clean straight lines of logic, is often irregular, messy.”

2. “In fact, biology is chaos. Biological systems are the product not of logic but of evolution, an inelegant process. Life does not choose the logically best design to meet a new situation. It adapts what already exists... The result, unlike the clean straight lines of logic, is often irregular, messy.”

— John M. Barry

John M. Barry Quote: “Meanwhile, Quakers used outrageous behavior to draw more attention to their beliefs and provoke a response. A Quaker man walked into a Boston church holding a bottle in each hand, then smashed them to the floor; he shouted, “Thus will the Lord break all to pieces!” A Quaker woman stripped herself naked and paraded through the Newbury church during worship. Another Quaker woman paraded nude through the streets of Boston.”

3. “Meanwhile, Quakers used outrageous behavior to draw more attention to their beliefs and provoke a response. A Quaker man walked into a Boston church holding a bottle in each hand, then smashed them to the floor; he shouted, “Thus will the Lord break all to pieces!” A Quaker woman stripped herself naked and paraded through the Newbury church during worship. Another Quaker woman paraded nude through the streets of Boston.”

— John M. Barry

John M. Barry Quote: “It is so much easier to believe than to think; it is astounding how much more believing is done than thinking.”

4. “It is so much easier to believe than to think; it is astounding how much more believing is done than thinking.”

— John M. Barry

John M. Barry Quote: “Oliver Wendell Holmes, the physician father of the Supreme Court justice, was not much overstating when he declared, “I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind – and all the worse for the fishes.”

5. “Oliver Wendell Holmes, the physician father of the Supreme Court justice, was not much overstating when he declared, “I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind – and all the worse for the fishes.”

— John M. Barry

John M. Barry Quote: “Influenza killed more people in a year than the Black Death of the Middle Ages killed in a century; it killed more people in twenty-four weeks than AIDS has killed in twenty-four years.”

6. “Influenza killed more people in a year than the Black Death of the Middle Ages killed in a century; it killed more people in twenty-four weeks than AIDS has killed in twenty-four years.”

— John M. Barry

John M. Barry Quote: “Newspapers reported on the disease with the same mixture of truth and half-truth, truth and distortion, truth and lies with which they reported everything else. And no national official ever publicly acknowledged the danger of influenza.”

7. “Newspapers reported on the disease with the same mixture of truth and half-truth, truth and distortion, truth and lies with which they reported everything else. And no national official ever publicly acknowledged the danger of influenza.”

— John M. Barry

John M. Barry Quote: “The fear, not the disease, threatened to break the society apart.”

8. “The fear, not the disease, threatened to break the society apart.”

— John M. Barry

John M. Barry Quote: “Sit down before a fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.” He also believed that learning had purpose, stating, “The great end of life is not knowledge but action.”

9. “Sit down before a fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.” He also believed that learning had purpose, stating, “The great end of life is not knowledge but action.”

— John M. Barry

John M. Barry Quote: “It was a skill useful to lawyers, and no man in all English history was more the lawyer than Coke. He personified a profession considered both so influential and so dubious that in 1372 the House of Commons had tried to bar lawyers from Parliament; little had changed when, in Coke’s lifetime, Shakespeare wrote, “First, kill all the lawyers.”

10. “It was a skill useful to lawyers, and no man in all English history was more the lawyer than Coke. He personified a profession considered both so influential and so dubious that in 1372 the House of Commons had tried to bar lawyers from Parliament; little had changed when, in Coke’s lifetime, Shakespeare wrote, “First, kill all the lawyers.”

— John M. Barry

John M. Barry Quote: “You don’t manage the truth. You tell the truth.”

11. “You don’t manage the truth. You tell the truth.”

— John M. Barry

John M. Barry Quote: “For the influenza pandemic that erupted in 1918 was the first great collision between nature and modern science. It was the first great collision between a natural force and a society that included individuals who refused either to submit to that force or to simply call upon divine intervention to save themselves from it, individuals who instead were determined to confront this force directly, with a developing technology and with their minds.”

12. “For the influenza pandemic that erupted in 1918 was the first great collision between nature and modern science. It was the first great collision between a natural force and a society that included individuals who refused either to submit to that force or to simply call upon divine intervention to save themselves from it, individuals who instead were determined to confront this force directly, with a developing technology and with their minds.”

— John M. Barry

John M. Barry Quote: “The two most important questions in science are “What can I know?” and “How can I know it?”

13. “The two most important questions in science are “What can I know?” and “How can I know it?”

— John M. Barry

John M. Barry Quote: “As terrifying the disease was, the press made it more so. They terrified by making little of it, for what officials and the press said bore no relationship to what people saw and touched and smelled and endured. People could not trust what they read. Uncertainty follows distrust, fear follow uncertainty, and, under conditions such as these, terror follows fear.”

14. “As terrifying the disease was, the press made it more so. They terrified by making little of it, for what officials and the press said bore no relationship to what people saw and touched and smelled and endured. People could not trust what they read. Uncertainty follows distrust, fear follow uncertainty, and, under conditions such as these, terror follows fear.”

— John M. Barry

John M. Barry Quote: “Williams created the first government in the world which broke church and state apart. Because those who had linked the two believed that political authority came from God, this led to a fission whose fallout included the new and equally explosive concept that the state derives its authority from and remains subject to its citizens.”

15. “Williams created the first government in the world which broke church and state apart. Because those who had linked the two believed that political authority came from God, this led to a fission whose fallout included the new and equally explosive concept that the state derives its authority from and remains subject to its citizens.”

— John M. Barry

John M. Barry Quote: “In the United States, no government, institution, or philanthropist even began to approach a similar level of support. As the Hopkins medical school was opening, American theological schools enjoyed endowments of $18 million, while medical school endowments totaled $500,000.”

16. “In the United States, no government, institution, or philanthropist even began to approach a similar level of support. As the Hopkins medical school was opening, American theological schools enjoyed endowments of $18 million, while medical school endowments totaled $500,000.”

— John M. Barry

John M. Barry Quote: “Epidemiologists have computed that measles requires an unvaccinated population of at least half a million people living in fairly close contact to continue to exist.”

17. “Epidemiologists have computed that measles requires an unvaccinated population of at least half a million people living in fairly close contact to continue to exist.”

— John M. Barry

John M. Barry Quote: “He advised, “Whenever you fall, pick up something.”

18. “He advised, “Whenever you fall, pick up something.”

— John M. Barry

John M. Barry Quote: “Huxley did not look the warrior. But he had a warrior’s ruthlessness. His dicta included the pronouncement: “The foundation of morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying.”

19. “Huxley did not look the warrior. But he had a warrior’s ruthlessness. His dicta included the pronouncement: “The foundation of morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying.”

— John M. Barry

John M. Barry Quote: “But even after European medicine changed, medicine in the United States did not. In research and education especially, American medicine lagged far behind, and that made practice lag as well.”

20. “But even after European medicine changed, medicine in the United States did not. In research and education especially, American medicine lagged far behind, and that made practice lag as well.”

— John M. Barry

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