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. 1902Quotes
Plagues are as certain as death and taxes.
—Richard Krause, 1982If we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare.
—George W. Bush, 2005Disease is not of the body but of the place.
—Latin proverbWhat timid man does not avoid contact with the sick, fearing lest he contract a disease so near?
—Ovid, c. 10Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.
—Samuel Johnson, 1750Men take diseases, one of another. Therefore let men take heed of their company.
—William Shakespeare, c. 1600Diseases are not immutable entities but dynamic social constructions that have biographies of their own.
—Robert P. Hudson, 1983Everyone who is sick is someone else’s patient zero.
—Leslie Jamison, 2020It is strange indeed that the more we learn about how to build health, the less healthy Americans become.
—Adelle Davis, 1951Ours is an age which consciously pursues health, and yet only believes in the reality of sickness.
—Susan Sontag, 1963I have learned much from disease which life could never have taught me anywhere else.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1830Hygienic law, like martial law, supersedes rights in crises.
—Samuel Hopkins Adams, 1913