Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability.
The higher the standard of education in a profession, the less marked will be the charlatanism.
In the Mortality Bills, pneumonia is an easy second, to tuberculosis; indeed in many cities the death-rate is now higher and it has become, to use the phrase of Bunyan ‘the captain of the men of death.’
Fed on the dry husks of facts, the human heart has a hidden want which science cannot supply.
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.
Happiness lies in the absorption in some vocation which satisfies the soul.
The higher education so much needed today is not given in the school, is not to be bought in the market place, but it has to be wrought out in each one of us for himself; it is the silent influence of character on character.
Nothing is life is more wonderful than faith.
Conservatism and old fogeyism are totally different things; the motto of one is “Prove all things and hold fast that which is good” and of the other “Prove nothing but hold fast that which is old.”
The most essential thing for happiness is the gift of friendship.
The only way to treat the common cold is with contempt.
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.
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.
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.
No man is really happy or safe without a hobby...
Half of us are blind, few of us feel, and we are all deaf.
Too many men slip early out of the habit of studious reading, and yet that is essential.
To do today’s work well and not to bother about tomorrow is the secret of accomplishment.
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.
That man can interrogate as well as observe nature was a lesson slowly learned in his evolution.
Beware of people who call you ‘Doc.’ They rarely pay their bills.