Rita Levi-Montalcini
Rita Levi-Montalcini
Rita Levi-Montalcini, OMRI, OMCAwas an Italian Nobel laureate, honored for her work in neurobiology. She was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with colleague Stanley Cohen for the discovery of nerve growth factor. From 2001 until her death, she also served in the Italian Senate as a Senator for Life...
NationalityItalian
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth22 April 1909
CityTurin, Italy
CountryItaly
Rita Levi-Montalcini quotes about
centuries future toward women
After centuries of dormancy, young women... can now look toward a future moulded by their own hands.
experience mind
At 100, I have a mind that is superior - thanks to experience - than when I was 20.
appreciation atmosphere both cultured decisions enjoyed family filled four head highly husband instilled life love parents reciprocal style taken typical victorian wonderful
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.
projects instruments chemicals
The instruments, glassware, and chemical reagents necessary for my project were the same as my 19th-century predecessors had.
latin father school
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.
girl baby
Babies did not attract me, and I was altogether without the maternal sense so highly developed in small and adolescent girls.
race joy bedroom
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,
spring home army
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.
years perfection long
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.
process nobel complexes
The process for awarding Nobel prizes is so complex that it cannot be corrupted.
expression snakes growth
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.
nobel persecution ifs
If I had not been discriminated against or had not suffered persecution, I would never have received the Nobel Prize.