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.

The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.

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

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.

The young physician starts life with 20 drugs for each disease, and the old physician ends life with one drug for 20 diseases.

To study the phenomena of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all.

Soap and water and common sense are the best disinfectants.

The best preparation for tomorrow is to do today's work superbly well.

Observe, record, tabulate, communicate. Use your five senses. Learn to see, learn to hear, learn to feel, learn to smell, and know that by practice alone you can become expert.

The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.

The philosophies of one age have become the absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow.

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.

There are, in truth, no specialties in medicine, since to know fully many of the most important diseases a man must be familiar with their manifestations in many organs.

Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability.

The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.

The first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.

The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.

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

No bubble is so iridescent or floats longer than that blown by the successful teacher.

In seeking absolute truth we aim at the unattainable and must be content with broken portions.

The very first step towards success in any occupation is to become interested in it.

One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.

What is the student but a lover courting a fickle mistress who ever eludes his grasp?

We are here to add what we can to life, not to get what we can from life.

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

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.

The future is today.

Look wise, say nothing, and grunt. Speech was given to conceal thought.

It is much simpler to buy books than to read them and easier to read them than to absorb their contents.

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

There is no disease more conducive to clinical humility than aneurysm of the aorta.

The teacher's life should have three periods, study until twenty-five, investigation until forty, profession until sixty, at which age I would have him retired on a double allowance.

By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy - indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred of self satisfaction.

Courage and cheerfulness will not only carry you over the rough places in life but will enable you to bring comfort and help to the weak hearted and will console you in the sad hours.

Acquire the art of detachment the virtue of method and the quality of thoroughness but above all the grace of humility.

What is patience but an equanimity which enables you to rise superior to the trials of life.

Patients should have rest food fresh air and exercise the quadrangle of health.

The person who takes medicine must recover twice, once from the disease and once from the medicine.

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

I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream.

What I try to do for my readers is to pass on some of the things that I found out about being thirteen after doing it for forty years.

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied; and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

Young people discovering their sexuality must know they walk with a strong tradition and that they are not alone. They have a right to information without being pressured.

Being a publicist is like management in a lot of ways - you're their friend, you're their mother, you're their confidante.

I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.

I became hooked on the idea of being able to shoot an image and process it myself, and end up with a product.

Being a cover artist is not like being a real artist. That's just copying what someone else did.

It is too maddening. I've got to fly off, right now, to some devilish navy yard, three hours in a seasick steamer, and after being heartily sick, I'll have to speak three times, and then I'll be sick coming home. Still, who would not be sick for England?

I don't like being recognised, I have no interest in being famous at all, I just do what I do. If I could be like Captain Kirk and beam myself up and then beam myself down, I would!