156 Quotes by Francis Collins

The hopes of the parent of a child with a birth defect, the hopes of a young man with a family history of cancer, the hopes of a couple caring for an aging parent are in some way advanced by our having this instruction book of an animal which is a model for all of those circumstances.

I'm always feeling like I'm lacking wisdom. This reassurance that one can ask God for that and it will happen is certainly reassuring to me.

The Genome Project gave us the letters of the DNA code that we all share.

So much of what we are currently seeing as far as human suffering and misery comes from diseases that should have been preventable but were not.

I actually do not believe that there are any collisions between what I believe as a Christian, and what I know and have learned about as a scientist. I think there's a broad perception that that's the case, and that's what scares many scientists away from a serious consideration of faith.

For delightfully quirky descriptions of bizarre neurological syndromes that teach us a lot about how the brain works, there is no match for Oliver Sacks.

If I'm walking down the riverbank, and a man is drowning, even if I don't know how to swim very well, I feel this urge that the right thing to do is to try to save that person. Evolution would tell me exactly the opposite: preserve your DNA. Who cares about the guy who's drowning?

A technological advance of a major sort almost always is overestimated in the short run for its consequences - and underestimated in the long run.

Successful weight management really means a permanent change in lifestyle - and success in this arena provides that person with a great opportunity to model that behavior for friends and family.