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Gratitude (2015)

by Oliver Sacks

Other authors: Kate Edgar (Preface), Bill Hayes (Preface)

Other authors: See the other authors section.

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
8494225,358 (4.13)31
Biography & Autobiography. Literary Criticism. Philosophy. Nonfiction. HTML:“My predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved. I have been given much and I have given something in return. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”
—Oliver Sacks
No writer has succeeded in capturing the medical and human drama of illness as honestly and as eloquently as Oliver Sacks. 
During the last few months of his life, he wrote a set of essays in which he movingly explored his feelings about completing a life and coming to terms with his own death.
“It is the fate of every human being,” Sacks writes, “to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.”
Together, these four essays form an ode to the uniqueness of each human being and to gratitude for the gift of life.
“Oliver Sacks was like no other clinician, or writer. He was drawn to the homes of the sick, the institutions of the most frail and disabled, the company of the unusual and the ‘abnormal.’ He wanted to see humanity in its many variants and to do so in his own, almost anachronistic way—face to face, over time, away from our burgeoning apparatus of computers and algorithms. And, through his writing, he showed us what he saw.”
—Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal.
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» See also 31 mentions

English (37)  Spanish (2)  French (1)  Portuguese (Portugal) (1)  Italian (1)  All languages (42)
Showing 1-5 of 37 (next | show all)
Four essays by Sacks examining his life in his early 80s after leaning he has incurable metastasized cancer. Instead of gloomy and depressed, Sacks is filled with gratitude for the life he's lived.

I suspect that I will come back to this at different times in my life when I am more in need of his message. ( )
  hmonkeyreads | Jan 25, 2024 |
A hope-filled postscript of a fulfilled life ( )
  jemisonreads | Jan 22, 2024 |
Oliver Sacks died in August 2015 at his home in Greenwich Village, surrounded by his close friends and family. He was 82. He spent his final days doing what he loved: playing the piano, swimming, enjoying smoked salmon – and writing . . .

As Dr Sacks looked back over his long, adventurous life his final thoughts were of gratitude. In a series of remarkable, beautifully written and uplifting meditations, in Gratitude Dr Sacks reflects on and gives thanks for a life well lived, and expresses his thoughts on growing old, facing terminal cancer and reaching the end.
  LibraryPAH | Apr 25, 2023 |
Lovely book! ( )
  JRobinW | Jan 20, 2023 |
I wanted to continue reading this man's work after having read one of his books, and it was probably a wrong choice, since it has left me questioning my life in the search for something unique to do with it, in a time when my immature thoughts conflict with the need to contribute in some field these years that will be given to me. The philosophy is so painful that eventually all you can do is stop thinking at all or start thinking scientifically; there's no in between. These are the thoughts that this book generated in my mind, although the view of Oliver is much brighter and optimistic than my own, a fact quite ironic if one considers that he wrote his final breath on this book and here I am sixty years younger than he was, wondering curiously and wishing for my future life to have an impact and to offer something important to the world. So many thoughts, so many feelings since I realize that even a man of his accomplishments has a tiny voice inside pushing him to want to do more and know more and explore everything this world has to offer. And it's almost terrifying to see from the view of a brilliant dead man through his biographic pages and realising that noone can actually do everything because then people would live in a state of constant panic. I will close this huge and probably unimportant monologue saying that whatever contains the thoughts and points of view of this man is remarkable and I definitely recommend it to be read. ( )
  Ihaveapassion | Oct 25, 2022 |
Showing 1-5 of 37 (next | show all)
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» Add other authors (9 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Oliver Sacksprimary authorall editionscalculated
Edgar, KatePrefacesecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
Hayes, BillPrefacesecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
Woren, DanNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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I am now face to face with dying, but I am not finished with living.
Dedication
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Last night I dreamed about mercury—huge, shining globules of quicksilver rising and falling.
Quotations
I have been increasingly conscious, for the last ten years or so, of deaths among my contemporaries. My generation is on the way out, and each death I have felt as an abruption, a tearing away of part of myself. There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate—the genetic and neural fate—of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.
Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.
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Biography & Autobiography. Literary Criticism. Philosophy. Nonfiction. HTML:“My predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved. I have been given much and I have given something in return. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”
—Oliver Sacks
No writer has succeeded in capturing the medical and human drama of illness as honestly and as eloquently as Oliver Sacks. 
During the last few months of his life, he wrote a set of essays in which he movingly explored his feelings about completing a life and coming to terms with his own death.
“It is the fate of every human being,” Sacks writes, “to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.”
Together, these four essays form an ode to the uniqueness of each human being and to gratitude for the gift of life.
“Oliver Sacks was like no other clinician, or writer. He was drawn to the homes of the sick, the institutions of the most frail and disabled, the company of the unusual and the ‘abnormal.’ He wanted to see humanity in its many variants and to do so in his own, almost anachronistic way—face to face, over time, away from our burgeoning apparatus of computers and algorithms. And, through his writing, he showed us what he saw.”
—Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal.

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