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Quotes

He who dies of epidemic disease is a martyr.

—Muhammad, c. 630

What timid man does not avoid contact with the sick, fearing lest he contract a disease so near?

—Ovid, c. 10

’Tis a portentous sign / When a man sweats and at the same time shivers.

—Plautus, c. 180 BC

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

—Jack London, 1912

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

—Jacme d’Agramont, 1348

If we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare.

—George W. Bush, 2005

Hygienic law, like martial law, supersedes rights in crises.

—Samuel Hopkins Adams, 1913

Diseases are not immutable entities but dynamic social constructions that have biographies of their own.

—Robert P. Hudson, 1983

Death from the bubonic plague is rated, with crucifixion, among the nastiest human experiences of all.

—Guy R. Williams, 1975

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

—Bian Qiao, c. 500 BC

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

It is strange indeed that the more we learn about how to build health, the less healthy Americans become.

—Adelle Davis, 1951