Archive

Quotes

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

—Susan Sontag, 1963

The best quarantine is hygiene.

—Richard D. Arnold, 1871

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

—Guy R. Williams, 1975

He who dies of epidemic disease is a martyr.

—Muhammad, c. 630

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

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

—Bian Qiao, c. 500 BC

The sick man is the parasite of society.

—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1889

Even diseases have lost their prestige, there aren’t so many of them left.

—Louis-Ferdinand Céline, 1960

Health can make money, but money cannot make health.

—Maria Edgeworth, 1833

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

—Ovid, c. 10

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

—Adelle Davis, 1951

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

—Leslie Jamison, 2020

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

—Jack London, 1912