Chai – Eighteen Quotations for TBF


Chai – Eighteen Quotations for TBF

Lowell A. Goldsmith

Thomas B. Fitzpatrick inspired a generation of researchers
in the field of skin and its relation to and interaction with
light. A learned and experienced scientist and teacher, his
influence, especially his landmark textbook Fitzpatrick’s
Dermatology in General Medicine, will remain a living
testimony to his dedication to skin science. This memorial
issue is comprised of invited remembrance articles as well
as original articles selected from author-initiated submis-
sions accepted for publication after standard submission
and peer review. We selected papers reporting studies in Dr
Fitzpatrick’s fields of particular interest – melanoma, light,
and lasers – as well as articles by researchers who trained
under him at Harvard. We are grateful to those authors who
agreed to delay publication of their work in order for their
article to appear in this special issue, as well as to those
who contributed tribute articles remembering Dr. Fitzpa-
trick.

Known to be ready with a quotation for all occasions, it is
fitting to open this issue with a collection of 18 quotations
that honor the many aspects of Dr Fitzpatrick’s professional
life. ‘‘Chai’’ – the Hebrew number 18 – is also the word
for ‘‘life’’.

Light

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided
the light from the darkness.
Genesis I:3

Where the Statue stood
Of Newton, with his Prism and silent Face
The marble index of a Mind for ever
Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.
William Wordsworth (1771–1850)

A learned parson, rusting in his cell at Oxford or Cambridge,
will reason admirably well on the nature of man, will
profoundly analyze the head, the heart, the reason, the will,
the passions, the sentiments, and all those subdivisions of
we know not what; and yet, unfortunately, he knows nothing
of manyHe views man as he does colors in Sir Isaac
Newton’s prism, where only the capital ones are seen; but
an experienced dyer knows all their various shades and
gradations, together with the result of their several mixtures.
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)

Skin

yit is not the color of the skin that makes the man or the
woman, but the principle formed in the soul. Brilliant wit will

shine, come from whence it will; and genius and talent will
not hide the brightness of its luster.
Maria Stewart (1803–1879)

A tanned skin is something more than respectable, and
perhaps olive is a fitter color than white for a man, – a
denizen of the woods. ‘‘The pale white man!’’ I do not
wonder that the African pitied him.
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

Surely the day will come when color means nothing more
than skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to
speak one’s soul; when birth places have the weight of a
throw of the dice and all men are born free, when
understanding breeds love and brotherhood.
Josephine Baker (1906–1975)

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in
a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their
skin but by the content of their character.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968)

And the priest shall look on the plague in the skin of the
flesh: and when the hair in the plague is turned white, and
the plague in sight be deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is a
plague of leprosy: and the priest shall look on him, and
pronounce him unclean. If the bright spot be white in the
skin of his flesh, and in sight be not deeper than the skin,
and the hair thereof be not turned white; then the priest shall
shut up him that hath the plague seven days.
Leviticus XIII:3

Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?
Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.
Jeremiah XIII:23

Science

Whatever universe a professor believes in must at any rate
be a universe that lends itself to lengthy discourse. A
universe definable in two sentences is something for which
the professorial intellect has no use. No faith in anything of
that cheap kind!
William James (1842–1910)

The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by
the false appearance things present and which mislead into

Copyright r 2004 by The Society for Investigative Dermatology, Inc.

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error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but
by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860)

Seeing then that the truth consisteth in the right ordering of
names in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise truth
had need to remember what every name he uses stands for,
and to place it accordingly, or else he will find himself
entangled in words, as a bird in lime twigs, the more he
struggles, the more belimed.
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)

Teaching

Teaching is an instinctual art, mindful of potential, craving of
realizations, a pausing, seamless process.
A. Bartlett Giamatti (1938–1989)

A teacher for a day is a father for a lifetime.
Chinese proverb

I’m not a teacher: only a fellow-traveler of whom you asked
the way. I pointed ahead – ahead of myself as well as you.
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)

Writing

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and
writing an exact man.
Francis Bacon (1561–1626)

A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian,
Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched,
And touched nothing that he did not adorn.
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still
taught the people knowledge; yea, he gave good heed, and
sought out, and set in order many proverbs. The preacher
sought to find out acceptable words: and that which was
written was upright even words of truth. And further, by
these, my son, be admonished; of making many books
there is no end: and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
Ecclesiastes XII:9

DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1747.2003.22245.x

Attendees of the Fitzpatrick Symposium, Boston, September 12–14, 1982, with permission from the archives of the Department of

Dermatology, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.

viii GOLDSMITH THE JOURNAL OF INVESTIGATIVE DERMATOLOGY