William Osler

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

“The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Soap and water and common sense are the best disinfectants.”

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

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

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

“The future belongs to Science. More and more she will control the destinies of the nations. Already she has them in her crucible and on her balances.”

“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.”

“One special advantage of the skeptical attitude of mind is that a man is never vexed to find that after all he has been in the wrong.”