A surgeon should be young, a physician old.
—French Proverb
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 difference between an itch and an allergy is about one hundred bucks.
—Unknown
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 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
There are more old drunkards than old physicians.
—Francois Rabelais (1494–1553) French Humanist, Satirist
Is my dentist not bound by the Geneva Convention?
—Gerhard Kocher (b.1939) Swiss Publicist, Aphorist
Nature, time and patience are the three great physicians.
—Common Proverb
Life is short, the art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult.
—Hippocrates (460–370 BCE) Ancient Greek Physician
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
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
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 mistakes made by doctors are innumerable. They err habitually on the side of optimism as to treatment, of pessimism as to the outcome.
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922) French Novelist
Never ask a surgeon whether you need an operation.
—Gerhard Kocher (b.1939) Swiss Publicist, Aphorist
A great doctor kills more people than a great general.
—Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) German Rationalist Philosopher, Mathematician
Every invalid is a physician.
—Irish Proverb
There are worse occupations in this world than feeling a woman’s pulse.
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68) Irish Anglican Novelist, Clergyman
A skilful leech is better far, than half a hundred men of war.
—Samuel Butler
Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?
—Unknown
If the doctor cures, the sun sees it; if he kills, the earth hides it.
—Scottish Proverb
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
Cure the disease and kill the patient.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
Instead of wishing to see more doctors made by women joining what there are, I wish to see as few doctors, either male or female, as possible. For, mark you, the women have made no improvement—they have only tried to be “men” and they have only succeeded in being third-rate men.
—Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English Nurse
I know of nothing more laughable than a doctor who does not die of old age.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
The doctor found, when she was dead, her last disorder mortal.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
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
Surgeons must be very careful. When they take the knife, underneath their fine incisions, stirs the culprit—life!
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
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
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
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
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
Nature is better than a middling doctor.
—Common Proverb
Cured yesterday of my disease, I died last night of my physician.
—Matthew Prior (1664–1721) English Poet, Diplomat
I observe the physician with the same diligence as the disease.
—John Donne (1572–1631) English Poet, Cleric
The superior doctor prevents sickness; The mediocre doctor attends to impending sickness; The inferior doctor treats actual sickness;
—Chinese Proverb
A patient going to a doctor for his first visit was asked, And whom did you consult before coming to me? Only the village druggist, was the answer. And what sort of foolish advice did that numbskull give you? asked the doctor, his tone and manner denoting his contempt for the advice of the layman. Oh, replied his patient, with no malice aforethought, he told me to come and see you.
—Indian Proverb
For each illness that doctors cure with medicine, they provoke ten in healthy people by inoculating them with the virus that is a thousand times more powerful than any microbe: the idea that one is ill.
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922) French Novelist
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
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
Doctors don’t know everything really. They understand matter, not spirit. And you and I live in spirit.
—William Saroyan (1908–81) American Playwright, Novelist
The doctor is to be feared more than the disease
—Latin Proverb
One of the fundamental reasons why so many doctors become cynical and disillusioned is precisely because, when the abstract idealism has worn thin, they are uncertain about the value of the actual lives of the patients they are treating. This is not because they are callous or personally inhuman: it is because they live in and accept a society which is incapable of knowing what a human life is worth.
—John Berger (1926–2017) English Art Critic, Novelist
The more ignorant, reckless and thoughtless a doctor is, the higher his reputation soars even amongst powerful princes.
—Desiderius Erasmus (c.1469–1536) Dutch Humanist, Scholar
The first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.
—William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian Physician
Physician—One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
The best doctor is the one you run to and can’t find.
—Denis Diderot (1713–84) French Philosopher, Writer
Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm.
—Hippocrates (460–370 BCE) Ancient Greek Physician
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
Nursing would be a dream job if there were no doctors.
—Gerhard Kocher (b.1939) Swiss Publicist, Aphorist
Tidy fees are the most effective remedy, both for the doctor and the patient.
—Dario Fo (1926–2016) Italian Playwright, Actor