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William Osler Quotes
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It helps a man immensely to be a bit of a hero-worshipper, and the stories of the lives of the masters of medicine do much to stimulate our ambition and rouse our sympathies.
William Osler
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The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.
William Osler
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To study the phenomenon of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all.
William Osler
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My second fixed idea is the uselessness of men above sixty years of age, and the incalculable benefit it would be in commercial, political, and in professional life, if as a matter of course, men stopped work at this age.
William Osler
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Even in populous districts, the practice of medicine is a lonely road which winds up-hill all the way and a man may easily go astray and never reach the Delectable Mountains unless he early finds those shepherd guides of whom Bunyan tells, Knowledge, Experience, Watchful, and Sincere.
William Osler
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We are all dietetic sinners; only a small percent of what we eat nourishes us, the balance goes to waste and loss of energy.
William Osler
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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
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In seeking absolute truth we aim at the unattainable and must be content with broken portions.
William Osler
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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.'
William Osler
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Far too large a section of the treatment of disease is today controlled by the big manufacturing pharmacists, who have enslaved us in a plausible pseudo-science.
William Osler
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The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.
William Osler
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Fed on the dry husks of facts, the human heart has a hidden want which science cannot supply.
William Osler
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It is much simpler to buy books than to read them and easier to read them than to absorb their contents.
William Osler
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When schemes are laid in advance, it is surprising how often the circumstances fit in with them.
William Osler
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The extraordinary development of modern science may be her undoing. Specialism, now a necessity, has fragmented the specialities themselves in a way that makes the outlook hazardous. The workers lose all sense of proportion in a maze of minutiae.
William Osler
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Nothing will sustain you more potently than the power to recognize in your humdrum routine, as perhaps it may be thought, the true poetry of life — the poetry of the commonplace, of the plain, toil-worn woman, with their loves and their joys, their sorrows and their griefs.
William Osler
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There is no more potent antidote to the corroding influence of mammon than the presence in the community of a body of men devoted to science, living for investigation and caring nothing for the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.
William Osler
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The future belongs to Science. More and more she will control the destinies of the nations. Already she has them in her crucible and on her balances.
William Osler
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What is the student but a lover courting a fickle mistress who ever eludes his grasp?
William Osler
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While in general use for centuries, one good result of the recent development of mental healing has been to call attention to its great value as a measure to be carefully and scientifically applied in suitable cases. My experience has been that of the unconscious rather than the deliberate faith healer. Phenomenal, even what could be called miraculous, cures are not very uncommon. Like others, I have had cases any one of which, under suitable conditions, could have been worthy of a shrine or made the germ of a pilgrimage.
William Osler
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A desire to take medicine is, perhaps, the great feature which distinguishes man from other animals.
William Osler
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The very first step towards success in any occupation is to become interested in it.
William Osler
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A physician who treats himself has a fool for a patient.
William Osler
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Viewed through the perspective of memory, an unrecorded observation, the vital details long since lost, easily changes its countenance and sinks obediently into the frame fashioned by the fancy of the moment.
William Osler
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If the license to practice meant the completion of his education how sad it would be for the practitioner, how distressing to his patients! More clearly than any other the physician should illustrate the truth of Plato's saying that education is a life-long process.
William Osler
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Quote of the day
Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees.
Faith Baldwin
William Osler
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Born:
July 12, 1849
Died:
December 29, 1919
(aged 70)
Bio:
Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet was a Canadian physician and one of the four founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Known for:
The Principles and Practice of Medicine (1892)
The quotable Osler
Counsels and ideals
Most used words:
life
medicine
science
man
work
faith
art
human
sense
study
knowledge
truth
twenty
disease
physician
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