Many of us will die for science without knowing it.
—Gerhard Kocher (b.1939) Swiss Publicist, Aphorist
The superior doctor prevents sickness; The mediocre doctor attends to impending sickness; The inferior doctor treats actual sickness;
—Chinese Proverb
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
I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
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
Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
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
He who lives by medical prescriptions lives miserably.
—Common Proverb
Medicine knows no limits, especially not its own.
—Gerhard Kocher (b.1939) Swiss Publicist, Aphorist
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
Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism.
—Samuel Butler
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
To array a man’s will against his sickness is the supreme art of medicine.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
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
Medicines are only fit for old people.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.
—William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian Physician
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
Time is generally the best doctor.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (c.43 BCE–c.18 CE) Roman Poet
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
—Common Proverb
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
The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
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
Medicine heals doubts as well as diseases.
—Karl Marx (1818–1883) German Philosopher, Economist
She saw she had fallen into the hands of one of those doctors who have strayed too far from apparent in the direction of the soul.
—Rebecca West (1892–1983) English Author, Journalist, Literary Critic
There are some remedies worse than the disease.
—Publilius Syrus (fl.85–43 BCE) Syrian-born Roman Latin Writer
Like a celestial chaperon, the placebo leads us through the uncharted passageways of mind and gives us a greater sense of infinity than if we were to spend all our days with our eyes hypnotically glued to the giant telescope at Mt. Palomar. What we see ultimately is that the placebo isn’t really necessary and that the mind can carry out its difficult and wondrous missions unprompted by little pills. The placebo is only a tangible object made essential in an age that feels uncomfortable with intangibles, an age that prefers to think that every inner effect must have an outer cause. Since it has size and shape and can be hand-held, the placebo satisfies the contemporary craving for visible mechanisms and visible answers . The placebo, then, is an emissary between the will to live and the body.
—Norman Cousins (1912–1990) American Political Journalist
Half of the modern drugs could well be thrown out of the window, except that the birds might eat them.
—Martin H. Fischer
Walking is man’s best medicine.
—Hippocrates (460–370 BCE) Ancient Greek Physician
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
Expensive medicines are always good: if not for the patient, at least for the druggist
—Russian Proverb