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...

Look wise, say nothing, and grunt. Speech was given to conceal thought.