PHYSICIANS QUOTES
quotations about physicians
No physician is really good before he has killed one or two patients.
HINDU PROVERB
I guessed that he was one of those ambitious young physicians who more and more fill the profession, opportunists with a fashionable hoodlum image, openly hostile to their patients. My brief stay at the hospital had already convinced me that the medical profession was an open door to anyone nursing a grudge against the human race.
J. G. BALLARD
Crash
He's the best physician that knows the worthlessness of the most medicines.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1733
No man is a good physician who has never been sick.
ARABIC PROVERB
Physician, n. One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
When he can render no further aid, the physician alone can mourn as a man with his incurable patient. This is the physician's sad lot.
ARATAEUS OF CAPPADOCIA
attributed, Oxford Dictionary of Medical Quotations
A lucky physician is better than a learned one.
MARVIN DWIGHT EDWARDS
The Antiquity of Proverbs
Physicians are, some of them, so pleasing and conformable to the humor of the patient, as they press not the true cure of the disease; and some other are so regular, in proceeding according to art for the disease, as they respect not sufficiently the condition of the patient. Take one of a middle temper; or if it may not be found in one man, combine two of either sort; and forget not to call as well, the best acquainted with your body, as the best reputed of for his faculty.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Regiment Of Health", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
The physician should look upon the patient as a besieged city and try to rescue him with every means that art and science place at his command.
ALEXANDER OF TRALLES
attributed, The Oxford Dictionary of Medical Quotations
Physicians of all men are most happy; what good success they have, the world proclaimeth, and what faults they commit, the earth covereth.
FRANCIS QUARLES
Hieroglyphics
The best physicians are Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet and Dr. Merryman.
ANONYMOUS
Men who are occupied in the restoration of health to other men, by the joint exertion of skill and humanity, are above all the great of the earth. They even partake of divinity, since to preserve and renew is almost as noble as to create.
VOLTAIRE
"Physicians", Philosophical Dictionary
Physicians still retain something of their priestly origin; they would gladly do what they forbid.
OTTO VON BISMARCK
attributed, Jews and Medicine: An Epic Saga
A physician is an unfortunate gentleman who is every day required to perform a miracle; namely to reconcile health with intemperance.
VOLTAIRE
attributed, Great Thoughts from Master Minds
Diagnosis, n. A physician's forecast of disease by the patient's pulse and purse.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
A physician can sometimes parry the scythe of death, but has no power over the sand in the hourglass.
HESTER LYNCH PIOZZI
letter to Fanny Burney, November 22, 1781
I am dying with the help of too many physicians.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
comment on his deathbed, Oxford Dictionary of Medical Quotations
The physician himself, if sick, actually calls in another physician, knowing that he cannot reason correctly if required to judge his own condition while suffering.
ARISTOTLE
De Republica
Unless a physician friendly healthcare delivery system is reestablished, a physician shortage is inevitable, and, or, many of those who become physicians will not have come from the best of our youth. Why would a young person with the ability to choose any career of their choice elect to spend at least ten to twelve years studying to become a physician whose future is a salaried employee of, and subject to the whims of, another government bureaucracy?
LINDSAY PRATT
Where are the Physicians?
The patient, who may mistrust his own parents, sons and relations, should repose an implicit faith in his own physician, and put his own life into his hands without the least apprehension of danger; hence a physician should protect his patient as his own begotten child.
SUSRUTA
"Sutrasthanam", Sushruta-Samhita