Walking is man’s best medicine.
—Hippocrates (460–370 BCE) Ancient Greek Physician
Well, now there’s a remedy for everything except death.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
The universal medicine for the Soul is the Supreme Reason and Absolute Justice; for the mind, mathematical and practical Truth; for the body, the Quintessence, a combination of light and gold.
—Albert Pike (1809–91) American Masonic Scholar, Orator, Jurist
The bitterness of the potion, and the abhorrence of the patient are necessary circumstances to the operation. It must be something to trouble and disturb the stomach that must purge and cure it.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
They do certainly give very strange, and newfangled, names to diseases.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
Quackery has no friend like gullibility.
—Common Proverb
Failure to examine the throat is a glaring sin of omission, especially in children. One finger in the throat and one in the rectum makes a good diagnostician.
—William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian Physician
The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm.
—Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English Nurse
We have to ask ourselves whether medicine is to remain a humanitarian and respected profession or a new but depersonalized science in the service of prolonging life rather than diminishing human suffering.
—Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (1926-2004) American Psychiatrist
He is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea.
—Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) (1885–1962) Danish Novelist, Short-story Writer
You can’t treat a car like a patient. A car needs love.
—Gerhard Kocher (b.1939) Swiss Publicist, Aphorist
The best doctor is the one you run to and can’t find.
—Denis Diderot (1713–84) French Philosopher, Writer
Medicine cures the man who is fated not to die.
—Common Proverb
He’s the best physician that knows the worthlessness of the most medicines.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
The doctor knows what his trained eyes see—and he says it’s the last of the ninth for me. So one more thing while the clouds loom dark and then I must leave this noisy park.
—Unknown
There are some remedies worse than the disease.
—Publilius Syrus (fl.85–43 BCE) Syrian-born Roman Latin Writer
Medicines are only fit for old people.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
God heals and the doctor takes the fee.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Mankind has survived all catastrophes. It will also survive modern medicine.
—Gerhard Kocher (b.1939) Swiss Publicist, Aphorist
A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world.
—Paul Dudley White (1886–1973) American Cardiologist
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
He has been a doctor a year now and has had two patients, no, three, I think—yes, it was three; I attended their funerals.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
I am dying from the treatment of too many physicians.
—Lucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucanus) (39–65 CE) Roman Statesman, Latin Poet
Prevention is better than cure.
—Desiderius Erasmus (c.1469–1536) Dutch Humanist, Scholar
The doctor should be opaque to his patients and, like a mirror, should show them nothing but what is shown to him.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
Do you know a cure for me?
Why yes, he said, I know a cure for everything. Salt water.
Salt water? I asked him.
Yes, he said, in one form or another, sweat, tears or the salt sea.
—Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) (1885–1962) Danish Novelist, Short-story Writer
There are three subjects on which the knowledge of the medical profession in general is woefully weak; they are manners, morals, and medicine.
—Gerald F. Lieberman
Laughter is the best medicine.
—Common Proverb
Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
Physic is, for the most part, only a substitute for temperance and exercise.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
The doctor learns that if he gets ahead of the superstitions of his patients he is a ruined man; and the result is that he instinctively takes care not to get ahead of them.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
A dose of adversity is often as needful as a dose of medicine.
—Common Proverb
Cure the disease and kill the patient.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
Medicine knows no limits, especially not its own.
—Gerhard Kocher (b.1939) Swiss Publicist, Aphorist
Desperate maladies require desperate remedies.
—French Proverb
A good night’s sleep, or a ten-minute brawl, or a pint of chocolate ice cream, or all three together, is good medicine.
—Ray Bradbury (b.1920) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
Conscience, man’s moral medicine chest.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth: and he that is wise will not abhor them. Was not the water made sweet with wood, that the virtue thereof might be known?
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
Every doctor will allow a colleague to decimate a whole countryside sooner than violate the bond of professional etiquette by giving him away.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
I observe the physician with the same diligence as the disease.
—John Donne (1572–1631) English Poet, Cleric
Medicine can only cure curable disease, and then not always
—Chinese Proverb
Medicine is a collection of uncertain prescriptions, the results of which, taken collectively, are more fatal than useful to mankind.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
—Common Proverb
By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death will seize the doctor too.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism.
—Samuel Butler
I have noticed that doctors who fail in the practice of medicine have a tendency to seek one another’s company and aid in consultation. A doctor who cannot take out your appendix properly will recommend you to a doctor who will be unable to remove your tonsils with success.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
As long as men are liable to die and are desirous to live, a physician will be made fun of, but he will be well paid.
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author
Temperance and labor are the two best physicians of man; labor sharpens the appetite, and temperance prevents from indulging to excess.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher