Archive

Quotes

Ours is an age which consciously pursues health, and yet only believes in the reality of sickness.

—Susan Sontag, 1963

Disease makes men more physical, it leaves them nothing but body.

—Thomas Mann, 1924

In times of pestilence, gaiety and joyousness are most profitable.

—Jacme d’Agramont, 1348

The diseases of the present have little in common with the diseases of the past save that we die of them.

—Agnes Repplier, 1929

The beginning of health lies in knowing the disease.

—Miguel de Cervantes, 1615

Everyone who is sick is someone else’s patient zero.

—Leslie Jamison, 2020

Infectious disease is one of the few genuine adventures left in the world.

—Hans Zinsser, 1935

Men take diseases, one of another. Therefore let men take heed of their company.

—William Shakespeare, c. 1600

All the world is topsy-turvy, and it has been topsy-turvy ever since the plague.

—Jack London, 1912

He who dies of epidemic disease is a martyr.

—Muhammad, c. 630

The passion for setting people right is in itself an afflictive disease.

—Marianne Moore, 1935

Diseases, at least many of them, are like human beings. They are born, they flourish, and they die.

—David Riesman, 1937

Plagues are as certain as death and taxes.

—Richard Krause, 1982