William Osler Quotes, Sayings, Remarks, Thoughts and Speeches
William Osler Quotes and Sayings
- 1
He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 2
In seeking absolute truth we aim at the unattainable and must be content with broken portions.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 3
It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 4
It is much simpler to buy books than to read them and easier to read them than to absorb their contents.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 5
Look wise, say nothing, and grunt. Speech was given to conceal thought.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 6
Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 7
No bubble is so iridescent or floats longer than that blown by the successful teacher.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 8
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 | Refcard PDF ↑
- 9
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.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 10
One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 11
Soap and water and common sense are the best disinfectants.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 12
The best preparation for tomorrow is to do today's work superbly well.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 13
The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 14
The first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 15
The future is today.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 16
The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 17
The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 18
The natural man has only two primal passions, to get and to beget.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 19
The philosophies of one age have become the absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 20
The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 21
The very first step towards success in any occupation is to become interested in it.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 22
The young physician starts life with 20 drugs for each disease, and the old physician ends life with one drug for 20 diseases.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 23
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.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 24
There is no disease more conducive to clinical humility than aneurysm of the aorta.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 25
There is no more difficult art to acquire than the art of observation, and for some men it is quite as difficult to record an observation in brief and plain language.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 26
To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals - this alone is worth the struggle.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 27
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.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 28
Variability is the law of life, and as no two faces are the same, so no two bodies are alike, and no two individuals react alike and behave alike under the abnormal conditions which we know as disease.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 29
We are here to add what we can to life, not to get what we can from life.
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 30
What is the student but a lover courting a fickle mistress who ever eludes his grasp?
William Osler | Refcard PDF ↑
