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Quotes

He who dies of epidemic disease is a martyr.

—Muhammad, c. 630

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

—Leslie Jamison, 2020

I reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better.

—Samuel Butler, c. 1902

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

—Marianne Moore, 1935

Plagues are as certain as death and taxes.

—Richard Krause, 1982

Health in all lands is among the indispensable guarantees of human progress.

—Helen Keller, 1936

How sickness enlarges the dimension of a man’s self to himself! He is his own exclusive object.

—Charles Lamb, 1833

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

—Agnes Repplier, 1929

We should always presume the disease to be curable until its own nature proves it otherwise.

—Peter Mere Latham, c. 1845

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

—Jack London, 1912

The beginning of health lies in knowing the disease.

—Miguel de Cervantes, 1615

Men worry over the great number of diseases, while doctors worry over the scarcity of effective remedies.

—Bian Qiao, c. 500 BC

Disease is not of the body but of the place.

—Latin proverb