Shocking Sayings

It is not worth my while to manufacture in three countries only; but I can find it very worthwhile to make it for the whole world.

About 6 or 8 years ago My Ingenious friend Mr John Robinson having [contrived] conceived that a fire engine might be made without a Lever—by Inverting the Cylinder & placing it above the mouth of the pit proposed to me to make a model of it which was…

I had gone on a walk on a fine Sabbath afternoon. I had entered the Green [of Glasgow] by the gate at the foot of Charlotte Street—had passed the old washing-house. I was thinking upon the engine at the time, and had gone as far as the herd's house, …

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - and most fools do.

To find out a girl's faults, praise her to her girlfriends.

If you're going through hell, keep going.

Let me add, that only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.

Fear not death for the sooner we die, the longer we shall be immortal.

It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.

How wonderful that this horrid pestilence should at this time even have an existence in our island . . . A Physician from Copenhagen call'd on me today, and express'd his astonishment at an opposition to vaccine Inoculation, as by that means only the…

This Inquiry will lay all those troublesome ghosts which have so long haunted the Metropolis with their ox-faces, & dismal hootings against Vaccination. However, tis all for the best – you may depend upon it the new Investigation will prove the touch…

Altho' I should be happy to shield it myself from the speckled Monster, yet I would advise you not long to risk my coming to Town. I will just add that I consider the Vaccine Lancet in the hand of [Dr.] John Ring, just as safe as in my own.

It seems to be the determination of some of the jealous members of the ****** (R. *** Soc. y), not to suffer the Institution to sink, but on the / Other hand to master up a force, & support it with all possible vigour. I, of course should be happy to…

I am not surprised that men are not grateful to me; but I wonder that they are not grateful to God for the good which He has made me the instrument of conveying to my fellow creatures.

I demand of you, and of the whole world, that you show me a generic character... by which to distinguish between Man and Ape. I myself most assuredly know of none. But perhaps I should still do it according to the rules of science.

Homo Sapiens. Diurnus; varians cultura, loco. Europaeus albus, Asiaticus luridus, Africanus niger, Americanus rufus.

To live by medicine is to live horribly.

What remains to be said is of so novel and unheard of a character that I not only fear injury to myself from the envy of a few, but I tremble lest I have mankind at large for my enemies, so much to wont and custom that become as another nature, and d…

I have often wondered and even laughed at those who fancied that everything had been so consummately and absolutely investigated by an Aristotle or a Galen or some other mighty name, that nothing could by any possibility be added to their knowledge.