The philosophies of one age have become the absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow.

The librarian of today, and it will be true still more of the librarians of tomorrow, are not fiery dragons interposed between the people and the books. They are useful public servants, who manage libraries...

No bubble is so iridescent or floats longer than that blown by the successful teacher.

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 greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.

One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.

To die daily, after the manner of St. Paul, ensures the resurrection of a new man, who makes each day the epitome of life.

In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs.

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...

Work is the open sesame of every portal, the great equalizer in the world, the true philosopher’s stone which transmutes all the base metal of humanity into gold.

Throw away all ambition beyond that of doing the day’s work well. The travelers on the road to success live in the present, heedless of taking thought for the morrow. Live neither in the past...

We may indeed be justly proud of our apostolic succesion. THESE ARE OUR METHODS – to carefully observe the phenomena of life in all its stages , to cultivate reasoning faculty so as to be...

Variability is the law of life, and as no two faces are the same, so no two bodies are alike, and no two individuals react alike and behave alike under the abnormal conditions which we...

It cannot be too often or too forcibly brought home to us that the hope of the profession is with the men who do its daily work in general practice.

The young physician starts life with 20 drugs for each disease, and the old physician ends life with one drug for 20 diseases.

A library represents the mind of its collector, his fancies and foibles, his strength and weakness, his prejudices and preferences. Particularly is this the case if, to the character of a collector, he adds —...

For the general practitioner a well-used library is one of the few correctives of the premature senility which is so apt to take him.

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 here to add what we can to life, not to get what we can from it.

To study the phenomena of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all.

Avoid wine and women — choose a freckly-faced girl for a wife; they are invariably more amiable.

The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.

To confess ignorance is often wiser than to beat about the bush with a hypothetical diagnosis.

He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all.

It is much simpler to buy books than to read them and easier to read them than to absorb their contents.

We are constantly misled by the ease with which our minds fall into the ruts of one or two experiences

There is no disease more conducive to clinical humility than aneurysm of the aorta.

Now the way of life that I preach is a habit to be acquired gradually by long and steady repetition. It is the practice of living for the day only, and for the day’s work.

Courage and cheerfulness will not only carry you over the rough places in life, but will enable you to bring comfort and help to the weak-hearted and will console you in the sad hours

Varicose veins are the result of an improper selection of grandparents.

Soap and water and common sense are the best disinfectants.

What is the student but a lover courting a fickle mistress who ever eludes his grasp?

Advice is sought to confirm a position already taken.

A physician who treats himself has a fool for a patient.

Taking a lady’s hand gives her confidence in her physician.

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 —...

Too many men slip early out of the habit of studious reading, and yet that is essential.

Study until 25, investigate until 40, profession until 60, at which age I would have him retired on a double allowance.

By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy – indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred...

Save the fleeting minute; learn gracefully to dodge the bore.

There are no straight backs, no symmetrical faces, many wry noses, and no even legs. We are a crooked and perverse generation.

Without egotism and full of feeling, laughter is the music of life.

Here’s the advice Sir William Osler gave the students at Yale: “Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day absorb all your interest, energy and enthusiasm. The best preparation for...

The great minds, the great works transcend all limitations of time, of language, and of race, and the scholar can never feel initiated into the company of the elect until he can approach all of...

The higher the standard of education in a profession, the less marked will be the charlatanism.

The best preparation for tomorrow is to do today’s work superbly well.

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...

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.

Half of us are blind, few of us feel, and we are all deaf.

Medicine is learned by the bedside and not in the classroom. Let not your conceptions of disease come from words heard in the lecture room or read from the book. See, and then reason and...