At the outset do not be worried about this big question – Truth. It is a very simple matter if each one of you starts with the desire to get as much as possible. No human being is constituted to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; and even the best of men must be content with fragments, with partial glimpses, never the full fruition.

— William Osler

William Osler Quotes

The most essential thing for happiness is the gift of friendship.

— William Osler

The only way to treat the common cold is with contempt.

— William Osler

Think not of the amount to be accomplished, the difficulties to be overcome, or the end to be attained, but set earnestly at the little task at your elbow, letting that be sufficient for the day.

— William Osler

Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day absorb all your interest, energy and enthusiasm. The best preparation for tomorrow is to live today superbly well.

— William Osler

It is not as if our homeopathic brothers are asleep: far from it, they are awake – many of them at any rate – to the importance of the scientific study of disease.

— William Osler

No man is really happy or safe without a hobby...

— William Osler

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

— William Osler

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

— William Osler

To do today’s work well and not to bother about tomorrow is the secret of accomplishment.

— William Osler

I desire no other epitaph – no hurry about it, I may say – than the statement that I taught medical students in the wards, as I regard this as by far the most useful and important work I have been called upon to do.

— William Osler

That man can interrogate as well as observe nature was a lesson slowly learned in his evolution.

— William Osler

Beware of people who call you ‘Doc.’ They rarely pay their bills.

— William Osler

Nothing will sustain you more potently than the power to recognize in you humdrum routine, the true poetry of life – the poetry of the commonplace, of the ordinary person, of the plain, toilworn, with their loves and their joys, their sorrows and griefs.

— William Osler

One of the first essentials in securing a good-natured equanimity is not to expect too much of the people amongst whom you dwell.

— William Osler

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 in the interest of the public... Many still think that a great reader, or a writer of books, will make an excellent librarian. This is pure fallacy.

— William Osler

To talk of diseases is a sort of Arabian Nights entertainment.

— William Osler

Imperturbability means coolness and presence of mind under all circumstances, calmness amid storm, clearness of judgment in moments of grave peril, immobility, impassiveness, or, to use an old and expressive word, phlegm.

— William Osler

In the first place, in the physician or surgeon no quality takes rank with imperturbability, and I propose for a few minutes to direct your attention to this essential bodily virtue.

— William Osler

At the outset do not be worried about this big question – Truth. It is a very simple matter if each one of you starts with the desire to get as much as possible. No human being is constituted to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; and even the best of men must be content with fragments, with partial glimpses, never the full fruition.

— William Osler

Perfect happiness for student and teacher will come with the abolition of examinations, which are stumbling blocks and rocks of offense in the pathway of the true student.

— William Osler
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