William Osler

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

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.

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

The master-word in medicine is work.

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

The best way to learn is to do; the worst way to teach is to talk.

Live not in the past, but in the present, and for the future.

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

The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head.

The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.

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

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

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

The way to get rich is to be born rich.

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

The value of a man is not in what he gets, but in what he gives.

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not.

The student who is not prepared to take notes is not prepared to learn.

The chief function of the medical profession is to prevent disease.

The future belongs to those who prepare for it.