Jack Kevorkian famous quotes

You're basing your laws and your whole outlook on natural life on mythology. It won't work. That's why you have all these problems in the world. Name them: India, Pakistan, Ireland. Name them-all these problems. They're all religious problems.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Religious #Names #Law

Despite the solace of hypocritical religiosity and its seductive promise of an after-life of heavenly bliss, most of us will do anything to thwart the inevitable victory of biological death.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Seductive #Promise #Victory

All the big powers they've silenced me. So much for free speech and choice on this fundamental human right.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Choices #Fundamentals #Speech

When your conscience says law is immoral, don't follow it.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Law #Advice #Immoral

If a man is terrified, it's up to me to dispel that terror.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Men #Terror

I'm for absolute autonomy of the individual, and an adult, competent woman has absolute autonomy. It's her choice.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Choices #Insecurity #Adults

I think the Supreme Court does have the authority, which is not used, to declare a blanket right for all people, all adults.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Thinking #People #Adults

I suppose, if helping a patient die is killing, I suppose I'm a killer.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Killers #Helping #Patient

I knew I was getting into one of the most illegal things in the world. It was the right thing to do.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#World #Illegal #Right Thing

I gambled and I lost. I failed in securing my options for this choice for myself, but I succeeded in verifying the Dark Age is still with us.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Dark #Choices #Age

I don't crave publicity, you know.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Publicity

I am not a sentimental person.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Sentimental #Persons

A transfer of money should never be involved in this profound situation. Although illness is profound, too, but medicine's a business today. It's a business.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Medicine #Profound #Today

Yes, we need euthanasia, for certain cases where people are in comas or too immobile to even press a button.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#People #Buttons #Needs

The public can tolerate a Nazi America.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#America #Nazi #Tolerate

When you have nothing left to burn, you must set yourself on fire.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Fire

The law doesn't create a right.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Law

I have a natural right to do whatever I want with my body as long as it doesn't affect anybody else or any other property.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Long #Body #Want

We need some honesty and sincerity instead of corrupt government in Washington.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Honesty #Government #Needs

There are certain things that words on paper can never make a crime, .. There are certain acts that by sheer common sense are not crimes.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Common Sense #Paper #Crime

[Persons] who are recognized as citizens in any one state of the Union [have] the right to enter every other state, whenever they pleased... full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might meet; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Political #Liberty #Citizens

In quixotically trying to conquer death doctors all too frequently do no good for their patients' ease but at the same time they do harm instead by prolonging and even magnifying patients' dis-ease.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Doctors #Trying #Ease

Maybe I won't stay out of prison. Who knows?
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Prison

I don't persuade to suicide.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Suicide

Well, let's take what people think is a dignified death. Christ - was that a dignified death? Do you think it's dignified to hang from wood with nails through your hands and feet bleeding, hang for three or four days slowly dying, with people jabbing spears into your side, and people jeering you? Do you think that's dignified? Not by a long shot. Had Christ died in my van with people around Him who loved Him, the way it was, it would be far more dignified. In my rusty van.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Thinking #Hands #Your Side

My aim in helping the patient was not to cause death. My aim was to end suffering. It's got to be decriminalized.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Suffering #Causes #Helping

There's no doubt I expect to die in prison.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Doubt #Prison

She made the decision that her existence had lost its meaning. And you cannot judge that.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Umpires #Judging #Decision

Rotten travesty. Yeah. Send me to jail for contempt. Try that. Go ahead.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Jail #Trying #Rotten

Am I a criminal? The world knows I'm not a criminal. What are they trying to put me in jail for? You've lost common sense in this society because of religious fanaticism and dogma.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Religious #Jail #Common Sense

As a medical doctor, it is my duty to evaluate the situation with as much data as I can gather and as much expertise as I have and as much experience as I have to determine whether or not the wish of the patient is medically justified.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Data #Doctors #Wish

I'm not lying to myself like most people.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Lying #People

If you don't have liberty and self-determination, you've got nothing, that's what this is what this country is built on. And this is the ultimate self-determination, when you determine how and when you're going to die when you're suffering.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Country #Determination #Self

Let's hope you feel better now.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Feel Better #Feels

What are friends? Some people are nice. Some people aren't. There are some I'm fairly close with... we talk.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Nice #People

Five to six thousand people die every year waiting for organs, but nobody cares.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Years #People #Waiting

Freedom has a price. Most people aren't willing to pay it.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#People #Pay #Willing

I always said all my life if I wasn't born and they gave me the question I'd say I don't want to be born.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Want #Born #Said

Listen, when you take my liberty away, you've taken away more-something more precious than life. I mean, what good is a life without liberty? Huh? None.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Taken #Mean #Liberty

I hate to say this, but I'll repeat it: After death, all we know that you do is stink.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Hate #I Hate #Stink

It's the boredom that kills you. You read until you're tired of that. You do crossword puzzles until you're tired of that. This is torture. This is mental torture.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Tired #Blessing #Boredom

I have no regrets, none whatsoever.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Regret #No Regrets #Have No Regrets

I will go to what they call a court. Only they call it a court.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Court

My religion centers in different areas than what's considered conventional religion.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Different

How can you regret helping a suffering patient?
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Regret #Suffering #Helping

What looks like enjoyment is the sneer of contempt. That's not a smile.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Smile #Looks #Enjoyment

I didn't do this for other people; I did this for me. I fought for this right for me - does that sound selfish?
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Selfish #People #Sound

Anytime you interfere with a natural process, you're playing God. God determines what happens naturally. That means when a person's ill, he shouldn't go to a doctor because he's asking for interference with God's will. But of course, patients can't think that way.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Mean #Thinking #Doctors

Among doctors in general, I think more than half support what I'm doing.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Thinking #Doctors #Support

I would not want to live with a tube in my neck and not be able to move a finger. I wouldn't - that to me is not life.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Moving #Want #Able

The American people are sheep. They're comfortable, rich, working. It's like the Romans, they're happy with bread and their spectator sports. The Super Bowl means more to them than any right.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Sports #Mean #Sheep

I'd find it demeaning to be cleaning toilets.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Toilets #Cleaning #Demeaning

I'm not the kind of guy who has best friends.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Guy #Kind

The American Medical Association says the humane way is to let people starve and thirst to death. If you did that to an animal, youd be put in jail immediately ... In the face of such insanity masquerading as authority, who wouldnt be strident?
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Animal #Jail #People

The patient's autonomy always, always should be respected, even if it is absolutely contrary - the decision is contrary to best medical advice and what the physician wants.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Decision #Advice #Physicians

What I think a doctor should do is prevent disease, by any means necessary.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Mean #Thinking #Doctors

Liberty means more to me than life itself.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Mean #Liberty

When history looks back, it will prove what I'll die knowing.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Knowing #Looks #Prove

My intent was to carry out my duty as a doctor, to end their suffering. Unfortunately, that entailed, in their cases, ending of the life.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Doctors #Suffering #Racist

None of them want to delay. Understand that. None of them.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Delay #Want

Not one has shown an iota of fear of death. They want to end this agony.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Agony #Want #Fear Of Death

The patient decides when it's best to go.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Patient

The Supreme Court of the United States... has validated the Nazi method of execution in... concentration camps, starving them to death.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Execution #United States #Nazi

This is not a trial. This is a lynching. There is no law.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Lynching #Law #Trials

I don't enjoy good food. I don't enjoy flashy cars. I don't care if I live in a dump. I don't enjoy good clothes. This is the best I've dressed in months.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Clothes #Car #Months

I will admit, like Socrates and Aristotle and Plato and some other philosophers, that there are instances where the death penalty would seem appropriate.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Plato #Death Penalty #Philosopher

First of all, do any of you here think it's a crime to help a suffering human end his agony? Any of you think it is? Say so right now. Well, then, what are we doing here?
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Thinking #Agony #Suffering

I'm trying to knock the medical profession into accepting its responsibilities, and those responsibilities include assisting their patients with death.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Responsibility #Trying #Medical

The Jews were gassed. Armenians were killed in every conceivable way... So the Holocaust doesn't interest me, see? They've had a lot of publicity, but they didn't suffer as much.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Holocaust #Suffering #Way

Dying is not a crime.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Dying #Atheism #Crime

The public has no power. The government knows I'm not a criminal. The parole board knows I'm not a criminal. The judge knows I'm not a criminal.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Government #Judging #Criminals

The single worst moment of my life... was the moment I was born.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Moments #Born #Worst

If Christ can die in a barn, I think the death of a human in a van is not so bad.
-- Jack Kevorkian

#Thinking #Barns #Christ