Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by William Osler (Canadian Physician)

William Osler (1849–1919) was a renowned Canadian physician and author. He is frequently described as the “Father of Modern Medicine” for his impact on not only medical education but also the practice of medicine. He is the author of the first modern textbook of medicine. His Principles and Practice of Medicine, first published in 1892, went through seventeen editions and became the model for all subsequent medical textbooks.

During his time, Osler was regarded as the most celebrated physician in the history of the world. Harvey Cushing, his student, and first biographer wrote of Osler, “Everyone fortunate enough to have been brought in contact with him shared from the beginning in the universal feeling of devotion.”

Born in a remote part of Ontario known as Bond Head, Osler spent a year at Trinity College in Ontario before deciding on a career in medicine. He attended the Toronto Medical College for two years and in 1872 received his doctor of medicine degree from McGill University in Montreal. He pursued postgraduate studies in London, Berlin, and Vienna. Upon returning to Canada in 1874, he joined the medical faculty at McGill.

From 1888, as one of the four founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital, Osler revolutionized the medical curriculum of the United States and Canada, synthesizing the best of the English and German systems. He created the first residency program for specialty training of physicians. He also pioneered the practice of bringing third- and fourth-year medical students into the wards for bedside rounds where he and other physicians demonstrated the art of physical examination.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by William Osler

We are here not to get all we can out of life for ourselves, but to try to make the lives of others happier.
—William Osler
Topics: Happiness

The trained nurse has become one of the great blessings of humanity, taking a place beside the physician and the priest….
—William Osler

Look wise say nothing and grunt, speech was given to conceal thought.
—William Osler
Topics: Speaking, Speakers

The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.
—William Osler
Topics: Ignorance

Advice is sought to confirm a position already taken.
—William Osler
Topics: Advice

Nothing will sustain you more potently than the power to recognize in your humdrum routine, as perhaps it may be thought, the true poetry of life.
—William Osler

There is no more difficult art to acquire than the art of observation, and for some men it is quite as difficult to record an observation in brief and plain language.
—William Osler
Topics: Observation

Banish the future. Live only for the hour and its allotted work. Think not of the amount to be accomplished, the difficulties to be overcome, or the end to be attained, but set earnestly at the little task at your elbow, letting that be sufficient for the day.
—William Osler
Topics: The Present

The natural man has only two primal passions, to get and to beget.
—William Osler

Be calm and strong and patient. Meet failure and disappointment with courage. Rise superior to the trials of life, and never give in to hopelessness or despair. In danger, in adversity, cling to your principles and ideals. Aequanimitas!
—William Osler
Topics: Disappointment

Things cannot always go your way. Learn to accept in silence the minor aggravations, cultivate the gift of taciturnity and consume your own smoke with an extra draught of hard work, so that those about you may not be annoyed with the dust and soot of your complaints.
—William Osler
Topics: Acceptance, Complaining

Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability.
—William Osler
Topics: Medicine

It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has.
—William Osler

No human being is constituted to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and even the best of men must be content with fragments, with partial glimpses, never the full fruition.
—William Osler
Topics: Truth

As it can be maintained that all the great advances have come from men under forty, so the history of the world shows that a very large proportion of the evils may be traced to the sexagenarians, nearly all the great mistakes politically and socially, all of the worst poems, most of the bad pictures, a majority of the bad novels and not a few of the bad sermons and speeches.
—William Osler
Topics: Mistakes

He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all.
—William Osler

The first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.
—William Osler
Topics: Doctors

The only way to treat the common cold is with contempt.
—William Osler
Topics: Medicine

Care more for the individual patient than for the special features of the disease… . Put yourself in his place … The kindly word, the cheerful greeting, the sympathetic look—these the patient understands.
—William Osler

We are all dietetic sinners; only a small percent of what we eat nourishes us; the balance goes to waste and loss of energy.
—William Osler
Topics: Eating

Nothing in life is more wonderful than faith-the one great moving force which we can neither weigh in the balance nor test in the crucible.
—William Osler
Topics: Faith

The very first step towards success in any occupation is to become interested in it.
—William Osler
Topics: Success, Vision, Secrets of Success

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
Topics: Medicine

Variability is the law of life, and as no two faces are the same, so no two bodies are alike, and no two individuals react alike and behave alike under the abnormal conditions which we know as disease.
—William Osler
Topics: Health, Life and Living

In seeking absolute truth we aim at the unattainable, and must be content with finding broken portions.
—William Osler
Topics: Truth

The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease
—William Osler

It is much simpler to buy books than to read them and easier to read them than to absorb their contents. Too many men slip early out of the habit of studious reading, and yet that is essential…
—William Osler

No bubble is so iridescent or floats longer than that blown by the successful teacher.
—William Osler
Topics: Teaching

To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals—this alone is worth the struggle.
—William Osler

What is the student but a lover courting a fickle mistress who ever eludes his grasp?
—William Osler
Topics: Learning

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