Top 146 Quotes & Sayings by Dean Ornish - Page 3

Alas, bacon and eggs are not health foods.

I'm first and foremost a scientist.

It's true, you can lose weight on these high-animal-protein, Atkins-type diets, but you're mortgaging your health in the process.

There's a tendency to dismiss anything having to do with love and intimacy in medicine because it's hard to measure.

Anything that takes you out of the context of being separate is healing. Anything that takes you out of the context of separateness is intimacy.

At a time when 20% of people in the US go to bed hungry each night and almost 50% of the world's population is malnourished, choosing to eat more plant-based foods and less red meat is better for all of us-ourselves, our loved ones, and our planet.

Awareness-mindfulness-is the first step in healing. In Counterclockwise, Dr. Ellen Langer eloquently describes how becoming more aware of our beliefs and expectations allows us to powerfully transform our lives for the better. A pioneering, beautifully-written book.

I usually find that the process of discovery is more interesting than the answers.

Real power is not given to us or even created; real power is realized. It comes from realizing an inner sense of peace, self-worth, and happiness.

The healing power of love and relationships has been documented in an increasing number of well-designed scientific studies involving hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world.

Love and intimacy are at the root of what makes us sick and what makes us well...I am not aware of any other factor in medicine-not diet, not smoking, not exercise-that has a greater impact.

Stress is not so much what you do, but how you react to what you do.

When I talk about forgiveness, I mean letting go, not excusing the other person or reconciling with them or condoning the behavior. Just letting go of your own suffering.

Poor health is not caused by something you don't have; it's caused by disturbing something that you already have. Health is not something you need to get, it's something you have already if you don't disturb it.

I don't understand why asking people to eat a well-balanced vegetarian diet is considered drastic, while it is medically conservative to cut people open and put them on cholesterol lowering drugs for the rest of their lives.

Our survival depends on the healing power of love, intimacy and relationships. As individuals. As communities. As a country. As a culture. Perhaps even as a species.

We all have an inner teacher, an inner guide, an inner voice that speaks very clearly but usually not very loudly. That information can be drowned out by the chatter of the mind and the pressure of day-to-day events. But if we quiet down the mind, we can begin to hear what we're not paying attention to. We can find out what's right for us.

When I use the word spirituality, I don't necessarily mean religion; I mean whatever it is that helps you feel connected to something that is larger than yourself.

People don't dislike change, they dislike being changed.

Eating a vegetarian diet, walking (exercising) everyday, and meditating is considered radical. Allowing someone to slice your chest open and graft your leg veins in your heart is considered normal and conservative.

Meaning is malleable: take it out, you get nihilism and despair. Put it in, you get sacredness and something most special.

People tend to think of breakthroughs in medicine as a new drug, a laser, or a high-tech surgical procedure. They often have a hard time believing that the simple choices that we make in our lifestyle. What we eat, how we respond to stress, whether or not we smoke cigarettes, how much exercise we get, and the quality of our relationships and support can be as powerful as drugs and surgery. And they often are.

Love and intimacy are at the roots of what makes us sick and what makes us well, what causes sadness and what brings happiness, what makes us suffer and what leads to healing...I am not aware of any other factor in medicine- not diet, not smoking, not exercise, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery- that has a greater impact on our quality of life, incidence of illness and premature death from all causes.

Over time, years of meditation gave me glimpses of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all life. I experienced that on one level we are alone, separate, apart from everyone and everything; on another level, we are the Self in different disguises, different names and forms, a part of everyone and everything. This experience of interconnectedness is part of spiritual traditions and the perennial wisdom in virtually all religions and cultures.

People who are lonely and depressed are three to 10 times more likely to get sick and die prematurely than those who have a strong sense of love and community. I don’t know any other single factor that affects our health - for better and for worse - to such a strong degree.

One of the reasons my father ... became a dentist was so he could always be home for dinner and spend weekends with his family. At one point he had thought about being a musician, but he said, I'm not going to do that because I'd be on the road all the time and I wouldn't be with my family.