He is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
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
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
Medicine sometimes snatches away health, sometimes gives it.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (c.43 BCE–c.18 CE) Roman Poet
Doctor, no medicine.—We are machines made to live—organized expressly for that purpose.—Such is our nature.—Do not counteract the living principle.—Leave it at liberty to defend itself, and it will do better than your drugs.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
A skilful leech is better far, than half a hundred men of war.
—Samuel Butler
What medicines do not heal, the lance will; what the lance does not heal, fire will.
—Hippocrates (460–370 BCE) Ancient Greek Physician
I was not long since in a company where I was not who of my fraternity brought news of a kind of pills, by true account, composed of a hundred and odd several ingredients; whereat we laughed very heartily, and made ourselves good sport; for what rock so hard were able to resist the shock or withstand the force of so thick and numerous a battery?
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death will seize the doctor too.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Injections are the best thing ever invented for feeding doctors.
—Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927–2014) Colombian Novelist, Short-Story Writer
There are more old drunkards than old physicians.
—Francois Rabelais (1494–1553) French Humanist, Satirist
Mankind has survived all catastrophes. It will also survive modern medicine.
—Gerhard Kocher (b.1939) Swiss Publicist, Aphorist
Desperate maladies require desperate remedies.
—French Proverb
God heals and the doctor takes the fee.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
What can’t be cured, must be endured.
—Common Proverb
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
From year to year, it is more obvious: the goal of medicine is not health but the further extension of the health system.
—Gerhard Kocher (b.1939) Swiss Publicist, Aphorist
Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress; when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other.
—Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian Short-Story Writer
Do you know a cure for me?
Why yes, he said, I know a cure for everything. Salt water.
Salt water? I asked him.
Yes, he said, in one form or another, sweat, tears or the salt sea.
—Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) (1885–1962) Danish Novelist, Short-story Writer
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
I observe the physician with the same diligence as the disease.
—John Donne (1572–1631) English Poet, Cleric
The universal medicine for the Soul is the Supreme Reason and Absolute Justice; for the mind, mathematical and practical Truth; for the body, the Quintessence, a combination of light and gold.
—Albert Pike (1809–91) American Masonic Scholar, Orator, Jurist
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
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
The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.
—William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian Physician
Well, now there’s a remedy for everything except death.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
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
All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest in life.
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German Novelist, Critic, Philanthropist, Essayist
A dose of adversity is often as needful as a dose of medicine.
—Common Proverb
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