In the name of Hippocrates doctors have invented the most exquisite form of torture ever known to man: survival.
—Luis Buñuel, 1983Quotes
All pain is one malady with many names.
—Antiphanes, c. 400 BCThe doctor should be opaque to his patients and, like a mirror, should show them nothing but what is shown to him.
—Sigmund Freud, 1912When the physician said to him, “You have lived to be an old man,” he said, “That is because I never employed you as my physician.”
—Pausanias, c. 450 BCHe is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1833I am dying with the help of too many physicians.
—Alexander the Great, c. 323 BCThe doctor occupies a seat in the front row of the stalls of the human drama, and is constantly watching and even intervening in the tragedies, comedies, and tragicomedies which form the raw material of the literary art.
—W. Russell Brain, 1952How many desolate creatures on the earth have learnt the simple dues of fellowship and social comfort in a hospital.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1857To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891A miracle drug is any drug that will do what the label says it will do.
—Eric Hodgins, 1964You can’t find the soul with a scalpel.
—Gustave Flaubert, c. 1880Because the newer methods of treatment are good, it does not follow that the old ones were bad: for if our honorable and worshipful ancestors had not recovered from their ailments, you and I would not be here today.
—Confucius, c. 515 BCI have yet, I believe, some years in store, for I have a good state of health and a happy mind, and I take care of both by nourishing the first with temperance and the latter with abundance. This, I believe, you will allow to be the true philosophy of life.
—Thomas Paine, 1803