Rita Levi-Montalcini Quotations

At 20, I realized that I could not possibly adjust to a feminine role as conceived by my father and asked him permission to engage in a professional career. In eight months I filled my gaps in Latin, Greek and mathematics, graduated from high school, and entered medical school in Turin.

Progress depends on our brain. The most important part of our brain, that which is neocortical, must be used to help others and not just to make discoveries.

The four of us enjoyed a most wonderful family atmosphere filled with love and reciprocal devotion. Both parents were highly cultured and instilled in us their high appreciation of intellectual pursuit. It was, however, a typical Victorian style of life, all decisions being taken by the head of the family, the husband and father.

It is imperfection - not perfection - that is the end result of the program written into that formidably complex engine that is the human brain, and of the influences exerted upon us by the environment and whoever takes care of us during the long years of our physical, psychological and intellectual development.

Babies did not attract me, and I was altogether without the maternal sense so highly developed in small and adolescent girls.

My life has been enriched by excellent human relations, work and interests. I have never felt lonely.

If I had not been discriminated against or had not suffered persecution, I would never have received the Nobel Prize.

Above all, don’t fear difficult moments. The best comes from them

At 100, I have a mind that is superior - thanks to experience - than when I was 20.

I say to the young, be happy that you were born in Italy because of the beauty of the human capital, both masculine and feminine, of this country... No other country has such human capital.

My experience in childhood and adolescence of the subordinate role played by the female in a society run entirely by men had convinced me that I was not cut out to be a wife.

After centuries of dormancy, young women... can now look toward a future moulded by their own hands.

I told Mother of my decision to study medicine. She encouraged me to speak to Father... I began in a roundabout way... He listened, looking at me with that serious and penetrating gaze of his that caused me such trepidation, and asked whether I knew what I wanted to do.

I should thank Mussolini for having declared me to be of an inferior race. This led me to the joy of working, not any more unfortunately, in university institutes but in a bedroom,

A child from the age of 2 or 3 absorbs what is in the environment and what generates hatred for anyone perceived to be different.

The instruments, glassware, and chemical reagents necessary for my project were the same as my 19th-century predecessors had.

The process for awarding Nobel prizes is so complex that it cannot be corrupted.

It's not enough what I did in the past - there is also the future.

At 100, I have a mind that is superior - thanks to experience- than when i was 20.

You've been thinking about something without willing to for a long time...Then, all of a sudden, the problem is opened to you in a flash and you suddenly see the answer.

As for the presence of large NGF [nerve growth factor] sources in snake venom and male genital organs, they may be conceived as instances of bizarre evolutionary gene expression.

Find first peace within yourself. Don't eat too much. Keep your brain active. Love.

After a short period spent in Brussels as a guest of a neurological institute, I returned to Turin on the verge of the invasion of Belgium by the German army, Spring 1940, to join my family. The two alternatives left then to us were either to emigrate to the United States, or to pursue some activity that needed neither support nor connection with the outside Aryan world where we lived. My family chose this second alternative. I then decided to build a small research unit at home and installed it in my bedroom.

The body does whatever it wants. I am not my body; I am my mind.

If I die tomorrow or in a year, it is the same — it is the message you leave behind you that counts.

I tell young people: Do not think of yourself, think of others. Think of the future that awaits you, think about what you can do and do not fear anything.