William Osler Quotes
-
Patients rarely die of the disease from which they suffer. Secondary or terminal infections are the real cause of death.
→ -
The practice of medicine will be very much as you make it - to one a worry, a care, a perpetual annoyance; to another, a daily job and a life of as much happiness and usefulness as can well fall to the lot of man, because it is a life of self-sacrifice and of countless opportunities to comfort and help the weak-hearted, and to raise up those that fall.
→ -
There are only two sorts of doctors; those who practise with their brains, and those who practise with their tongues.
→ -
Let each hour of the day have its allotted duty, and cultivate that power of concentration which grows with its exercise.
→ -
There are, in truth, no specialties in medicine, since to know fully many of the most important diseases a man must be familiar with their manifestations in many organs.
→ -
Few diseases present greater difficulties in the way of diagnosis than malignant endocarditis, difficulties which in many cases are practi- cally insurmountable. It is no disparagement to the many skilled physicians who have put their cases upon record to say that, in fully one-half the diagnosis was made post mortem.
→ -
There is no disease more conducive to clinical humility than aneurysm of the aorta.
→ -
To know just what has do be done, then to do it, comprises the whole philosophy of practical life.
→ -
There is no more difficult art to acquire than the art of observation, and for some men it is quite as difficult to record an observation in brief and plain language.
→ -
We are constantly misled by the ease with which our minds fall into the ruts of one or two experiences
→ -
The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.
→ -
Care more for the individual patient than for the special features of the disease. . . . Put yourself in his place . . . The kindly word, the cheerful greeting, the sympathetic look - these the patient understands.
→ -
The very first step toward success in any occupation is to become interested in it. Locke put this in a very happy way when he said, give a pupil "a relish of knowledge" and you put life into his work.
→ -
Things cannot always go your way. Learn to accept in silence the minor aggravations, cultivate the gift of taciturnity and consume your own smoke with an extra draught of hard work, so that those about you may not be annoyed with the dust and soot of your complaints.
→ -
The higher the standard of education in a profession, the less marked will be the charlatanism.
→ -
Be calm and strong and patient. Meet failure and disappointment with courage. Rise superior to the trials of life, and never give in to hopelessness or despair. In danger, in adversity, cling to your principles and ideals. Aequanimitas!
→ -
It is not the delicate neurotic person who is prone to angina, but the robust, the vigorous in mind and body, the keen and ambitious man, the indicator of whose engines is always at full speed ahead.
→ -
The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head. Often the best part of your work will have nothing to do with potions and powders, but with the exercise of an influence of the strong upon the weak, of the righteous upon the wicked, of the wise upon the foolish.
→ -
It is strange how the memory of a man may float to posterity on what he would have himself regarded as the most trifling of his works.
→ -
Advice is sought to confirm a position already taken.
→ -
One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.
→ -
The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.
→ -
Happiness lies in the absorption in some vocation which satisfies the soul.
→ -
No dreams, no visions, no delicious fantasies, no castles in the air, with which, as the old song so truly says, hearts are broken, heads are turned.
→ -
The person who takes medicine must recover twice, once from the disease and once from the medicine.
→ -
The hardest conviction to get into the mind of a beginner is that the education upon which he is engaged is not a college course, not a medical course, but a life course, for which the work of a few years under teachers is but a preparation.
→ -
It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has.
→ -
Even in populous districts, the practice of medicine is a lonely road which winds up-hill all the way and a man may easily go astray and never reach the Delectable Mountains unless he early finds those shepherd guides of whom Bunyan tells, Knowledge, Experience, Watchful, and Sincere.
→ -
Acquire the art of detachment, the virtue of method, and the quality of thoroughness, but above all the grace of humility.
→ -
Every patient you see is a lesson in much more than the malady from which he suffers.
→