There is no medicine like hope, no incentives so great, and no tonics so powerful as the expectation of something better tomorrow.
—Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924) American New Thought Writer, Physician, Entrepreneur
Half of the modern drugs could well be thrown out of the window, except that the birds might eat them.
—Martin H. Fischer
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
Men who are occupied in the restoration of health to other men, by the joint exertion of skill and humanity, are above all the great of the earth. They even partake of divinity, since to preserve and renew is almost as noble as to create.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
Expensive medicines are always good: if not for the patient, at least for the druggist
—Russian Proverb
The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.
—William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian Physician
I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be better for mankind-and all the worse for the fishes.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
There are more old drunkards than old physicians.
—Francois Rabelais (1494–1553) French Humanist, Satirist
I am dying from the treatment of too many physicians.
—Lucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucanus) (39–65 CE) Roman Statesman, Latin Poet
I was under medication when I made the decision not to burn the tapes.
—Richard Nixon (1913–94) American Head of State, Lawyer
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
—Common Proverb
The difference between an itch and an allergy is about one hundred bucks.
—Unknown
It is medicine, not scenery, for which a sick man must go searching.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
Physic is, for the most part, only a substitute for temperance and exercise.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
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
The best doctor is the one you run to and can’t find.
—Denis Diderot (1713–84) French Philosopher, Writer
Prevention is better than cure.
—Desiderius Erasmus (c.1469–1536) Dutch Humanist, Scholar
Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism.
—Samuel Butler
Medicine, to produce health, has to examine disease; and music, to create harmony, must investigate discord.
—Plutarch (c.46–c.120 CE) Greek Biographer, Philosopher
We seem ambitious God’s whole work to undo.—With new diseases on ourselves we war, and with new physic, a worse engine far.
—John Donne (1572–1631) English Poet, Cleric
You medical people will have more lives to answer for in the other world than even we generals.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
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
The only way to treat the common cold is with contempt.
—William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian Physician
The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man’s body.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea.
—Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) (1885–1962) Danish Novelist, Short-story Writer
A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
At today’s prices for medicines, doctors and hospitals-if the latter are available at any price-only millionaires can afford to be hurt or sick and pay for it. Very few people want socialized medicine in the U.S. But pressure for it is going to appear with the same hurricane force as the demand for pollution control if the medicine men and hospital operators don’t take soon some Draconian measures… At the present rate of doctor fees and hospital costs under Medicare and Medicaid plans (taxpayers) are shovelling in billions with nothing but escalation in sight.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
Medicine cures the man who is fated not to die.
—Common Proverb
The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm.
—Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English Nurse
Laughter is the best medicine.
—Common Proverb
I observe the physician with the same diligence as the disease.
—John Donne (1572–1631) English Poet, Cleric
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
For what Harley Street specialist has time to understand the body, let alone the mind or both in combination, when he is a slave to thirteen thousand a year?
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
Deceive not thy physician, confessor, nor lawyer.
—George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh Anglican Poet, Orator, Clergyman
Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
Desperate maladies require desperate remedies.
—French Proverb
The superior doctor prevents sickness; The mediocre doctor attends to impending sickness; The inferior doctor treats actual sickness;
—Chinese 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
To array a man’s will against his sickness is the supreme art of medicine.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
They do certainly give very strange, and newfangled, names to diseases.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
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
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
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
Many of us will die for science without knowing it.
—Gerhard Kocher (b.1939) Swiss Publicist, Aphorist
There are some remedies worse than the disease.
—Publilius Syrus (fl.85–43 BCE) Syrian-born Roman Latin Writer
Walking is man’s best medicine.
—Hippocrates (460–370 BCE) Ancient Greek Physician
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
All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest in life.
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German Novelist, Short Story Writer, Social Critic, Philanthropist, Essayist
Cure the disease and kill the patient.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher