William Osler

the philosophies of one age have become the absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of to-morrow; through long ages which were slowly learning what we are hurrying to forget — amid all the changes …

We may indeed be justly proud of our apostolic succession.

The critical sense and sceptical attitude of the Hippocratic school laid the foundations of modern medicine on broad lines

One of the first essentials in securing a good-natured equanimity is not to expect too much of the people amongst whom you dwell.

Keen sensibility is doubtless a virtue of high order, when it does not interfere with steadiness of hand or coolness of nerve; but for the practitioner in his working-day world, a callousness which thinks only of the good to be effected, …

In a true and perfect form, imperturbability is indissolubly associated with wide experience and an intimate knowledge of the varied aspects of disease.

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.

Far too large a section of the treatment of disease is to-day controlled by the big manufacturing pharmacists, who have enslaved us in a plausible pseudo-science.

In the history of medicine, there are few instances in which a disease has been more accurately, more graphically or more briefly described.

Shakespeare gets to the root of the alcohol question in his well-known statement—'Good wine is a good, familiar creature if it be well used.'

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.

To it more than anything else I owe whatever success I have had — to this power of settling down to the day's work and trying to do it well to the best of my ability, and letting the future take care of itself.

I have had three personal ideals: One to do the day's work well and not to bother about tomorrow.

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

We can only instill principles, put the student in the right path, give him method, teach him how to study, and early to discern between essentials and non-essentials.

When schemes are laid in advance, it is surprising how often the circumstances fit in with them.

The trained nurse has become one of the great blessings of humanity, taking a place beside the physician and the priest, and not inferior to either in her mission.

Common sense in matters medical is rare, and is usually in inverse ratio to the degree of education.