Oliver Sacks
Oliver Sacks
Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE, FRCPwas a British neurologist, naturalist and author who spent his professional life in the United States. He believed that the brain is the "most incredible thing in the universe" and therefore important to study. He became widely known for writing best-selling case histories about his patients' disorders, with some of his books adapted for stage and film...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth9 July 1933
world favorites-things salmon
When I was five, I am told, and asked what my favorite things in the world were, I answered, smoked salmon and Bach.
feelings irony paradox
Dangerously well’— what an irony is this: it expresses precisely the doubleness, the paradox, of feeling ‘too well
blood practice long
Studies by Andrew Newberg and others have shown that long-term practice of meditation produces significant alterations in cerebral blood flow in parts of the brain related to attention, emotion, and some autonomic functions.
thinking voice vision
I think there's probably always been visions and voices, and these were variously ascribed to the divine or demonic or the muses. I think many poets still feel they depend on an inner voice, or a voice which tells them what to do.
kindness heart adversity
It is easy to recollect the good things of life, the times when one's heart rejoices and expands, when everything is enfolded in kindness and love; it is easy to recollect the fineness of life-how noble one was, how generous one felt, what courage one showed in the face of adversity.
memories giving people
Even when other powers have been lost and people may not even be able to understand language, they will nearly always recognize and respond to familiar tunes. And not only that. The tunes may carry them back and may give them memory of scenes and emotions otherwise unavailable for them.
gold sodium elements
At 11, I could say ‘I am sodium’ (Element 11), and now at 79, I am gold.
people brain together
The power of music and the plasticity of the brain go together very strikingly, especially in young people.
thinking musical important
I think there is no culture in which music is not very important and central. That's why I think of us as a sort of musical species.
strong passion animal
Darwin speculated that “music tones and rhythms were used by our half-human ancestors, during the season of courtship, when animals of all kinds are excited not only by love, but by strong passions of jealousy, rivalry, and triumph” and that speech arose, secondarily, from this primal music.
degrees odd
It really is a very odd business that all of us, to varying degrees, have music in our heads.
unique alzheimers tools
I regard music therapy as a tool of great power in many neurological disorders -- Parkinson's and Alzheimer's -- because of its unique capacity to organize or reorganize cerebral function when it has been damaged.
profound brain intriguing
A profound intriguing and compelling guide to the intricacies of the human brain.
brain different harmony
There is no one part of the brain which recognizes or responds emotionally to music. Instead, there are many different parts responding to different aspects of music: to pitch, to frequency, to timbre, to tonal intervals, to consonance, to dissonance, to rhythm, to melodic contour, to harmony.