A biography for Christian de Duvehasn’t been written yet.
“I cannot look at a question and not try to find the answer, even if I don't know it.”
“My education, according to the tradition of the Jesuit school which I attended, had been centered on the 'ancient humanities', and I was strongly attracted to the more literary branches.”
“It would be an exaggeration to say I'm not afraid of death, but I'm not afraid of what comes after, because I'm not a believer.”
“Although separating mitochondria and microsomes might appear worlds apart from the determination of the molecular weight of macromolecules, certain concepts were common to the two operations and could be usefully transposed from the latter to the former.”
“We know that once we stop learning and call ourselves learned, we become useless members of the scientific society.”
“Vast areas are witness to the struggles of destitute populations trying to survive under unlivable conditions.”
“Overcrowded cities are spawning increasingly lawless suburbs. Waste is accumulating in and around them, straining the capacity to deal with it.”
“Although attracted by the humanities, I had chosen medicine as a career, seduced by the image of the 'man in white' dispensing care and solace to the suffering. But science was lurking around the corner, in the form of an unpaid student assistantship in the laboratory of physiology.”
“Born in England during the First World War, of Belgian parents with partly German roots, I grew up in the cosmopolitan city of Antwerp, where I had the benefit of a classical education taught in the two national languages of Belgium: French and Dutch.”
“When, in 1949, I decided to join the little band of early explorers who had followed Albert Claude in his pioneering expeditions, electron microscopy was still in its infancy.”
“We have access to practical, ethical and scientifically established methods of birth control. So I think that is the most ethical way to reduce our population.”
“The living world has become impoverished. Species are being lost every day. Energy and other resources are nearing exhaustion. The environment is deteriorating. Pollution is everywhere. Climate is changing. Natural balances are threatened.”
“What I was concerned with was life: what are the major features that are common to all living organisms that subtly define life. So I looked at the whole problem as a chemist, as a biochemist, and as a molecular biologist.”