Quotes by Paul Farmer

About Paul Farmer:

Paul Edward Farmer is an American anthropologist and physician who is best known for his humanitarian work providing suitable health care to rural and under-resourced areas in developing countries, beginning in Haiti. Co-founder of an international social justice and health organization, Partners In Health (PIH), he is known as "the man who would cure the world," as described in the book, Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

WL’s [White Liberals] think all the world’s problems can be fixed without any cost to themselves. We don’t believe that. There’s a lot to be said for sacrifice, remorse, even pity. It’s what separates us from roaches

Paul Farmer

The poorest parts of the world are by and large the places in which one can best view the worst of medicine and not because doctors in these countries have different ideas about what constitutes modern medicine. It's the system and its limitations th...

Paul Farmer

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

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

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

Paul Farmer

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

I'm not an austere person.

Paul Farmer

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

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

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

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

Paul Farmer

The thing about rights is that in the end you can't prove what should be considered a right.

Paul Farmer

I can't think of a better model for Haiti rebuilding than Rwanda.

Paul Farmer

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

Paul Farmer

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

One of the things we have to acknowledge is that if you look at Haiti, many billions of dollars have gone into development aid there that have not been effective.

Paul Farmer

I think that looking forward it's easy to imagine more constructive help for Haiti.

Paul Farmer

I feel it's part of my job to make the problems of the poor compelling.

Paul Farmer

If you look at people who seek a lot of care in American cities for multiple illnesses, it's usually people with a number of overwhelming illnesses and a lot of social problems, like housing instability, unemployment, lack of insurance, lack of housi...

Paul Farmer

Again, conventional Catholicism does not much appeal to me.

Paul Farmer

Author Bio

  • NamePaul Farmer
  • DescriptionAmerican anthropologist
  • BornOctober 26, 1959
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionAnthropologist; Human Rights Activist
  • AwardsMacArthur Fellows Program