William Harvey

I avow myself the partisan of truth alone.

All we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains unknown.

Nature is nowhere accustomed more openly to display her secret mysteries than in cases where she shows tracings of her workings apart from the beaten paths; nor is there any better way to advance the proper practice of medicine than to give our minds to the discovery of the usual law of nature, by careful investigation of cases of rarer forms of disease.

As art is a habit with reference to things to be done, so is science a habit in respect to things to be known.

Man comes into the world naked and unarmed, as if nature had destined him for a social creature, and ordained him to live under equitable laws and in peace...

Very many maintain that all we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains unknown; nor do philosophers pin their faith to others' precepts in such wise that they lose their liberty, and cease to give credence to the conclusions of their proper senses. Neither do they swear such fealty to their mistress Antiquity that they openly, and in sight of all, deny and desert their friend Truth.

The studious and good and true, never suffer their minds to be warped by the passions of hatred and envy, which unfit men duly to weigh the arguments that are advanced in behalf of truth, or to appreciate the proposition that is even fairly demonstrated.

Only by understanding the wisdom of natural foods and their effects on the body, shall we attain mastery of disease and pain, which shall enable us to relieve the burden of mankind.

The heart itself is the first to live and the last to die.

It is not by words, but by facts and arguments, that we must seek for truth.

I hold that the motion of the blood is in a circle, and is constantly impelled and distributed by the pulsific action of the heart.

The more accurately we search into the wonderful works of God, the more a reason we shall find to admire them.

The blood, in truth, is the fountain of life, the first to move and the last to rest.

Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.

The heart by its pulsific action moves, perfects, and cherishes the blood, and preserves it from corruption and coagulation.

It is not simply by chance that the heart is placed in the midst of the body, as if it were the sun of the microcosm.

The circulation of the blood is a discovery that overthrows all the ancient doctrines of medicine.

Nature is a free and open book, to be read and understood by all who have the patience and the power to do so.

The knowledge of man is as the waters, some shallow and some deep.

The art of medicine is to be learned only by experience and observation.