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
Doctors are just the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you too.
—Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian Short-Story Writer
I tended to faint when I saw accident victims in the emergency ward, during surgery, or while drawing blood. On why he gave up medicine.
—Michael Crichton (1942–2008) American Novelist, Film Producer, Film Director, Screenwriter
The doctor found, when she was dead, her last disorder mortal.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
God heals and the doctor takes the fee.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
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
Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm.
—Hippocrates (460–370 BCE) Ancient Greek Physician
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
Tidy fees are the most effective remedy, both for the doctor and the patient.
—Dario Fo (1926–2016) Italian Playwright, Actor
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 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
The first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.
—William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian Physician
Nature is better than a middling doctor.
—Common Proverb
Some people think that doctors and nurses can put scrambled eggs back into the shell.
—Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1879–1958) American Novelist
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
Is it not also true that no physician, in so far as he is a physician, considers or enjoins what is for the physician’s interest, but that all seek the good of their patients? For we have agreed that a physician strictly so called, is a ruler of bodies, and not a maker of money, have we not?
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
Time is generally the best doctor.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (c.43 BCE–c.18 CE) Roman Poet
A skilful leech is better far, than half a hundred men of war.
—Samuel Butler
No one becomes a good doctor before he fills a churchyard
—Swedish Proverb
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
I observe the physician with the same diligence as the disease.
—John Donne (1572–1631) English Poet, Cleric
The best doctor is the veterinarian. He can’t ask his patients what is the matter- he’s got to just know.
—Will Rogers (1879–1935) American Actor, Rancher, Humorist
The best doctor is the one you run to and can’t find.
—Denis Diderot (1713–84) French Philosopher, Writer
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
The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his client to plant vines—so they should go as far as possible from home to build their first buildings.
—Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American Architect
A minor operation is one that is done on someone else.
—Richard Selzer (1928–2016) American Surgeon, Writer
There are worse occupations in this world than feeling a woman’s pulse.
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68) Irish Anglican Novelist, Clergyman
The young physician starts life with 20 drugs for each disease, and the old physician ends life with one drug for 20 diseases.
—William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian Physician
Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?
—Unknown
The doctor has been taught to be interested not in health but in disease. What the public is taught is that health is the cure for disease.
—Ashley Montagu (1905–1999) British-American Anthropologist