William Osler

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

The very first step towards success in any occupation is to become interested in it.

In seeking absolute truth we aim at the unattainable and must be content with broken portions.

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.

It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has.

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

The natural man has only two primal passions, to get and to beget.

Observe, record, tabulate, communicate. Use your five senses. Learn to see, learn to hear, learn to feel, learn to smell, and know that by practice alone you can become expert.

The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.

There are, in truth, no specialties in medicine, since to know fully many of the most important diseases a man must be familiar with their manifestations in many organs.

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

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