Quotes from Bernie Siegel

It is the experience of living that is important, not searching for meaning. We bring meaning by how we love the world.

The #1 problem most patients face is the inability to love themselves

I am convinced that unconditional love is the most powerful known stimulant of the immune system. If I told patients to raise their blood levels of immune globulins or killer T cells, no one would know how. But if I can teach them to love themselves and others fully, the same changes happen automatically. The truth is: love heals.

Our Creator has given us five senses to help us survive threats from the external world, and a sixth sense, our healing system, to help us survive internal threats.

Embrace each challenge in your life as an opportunity for self-transformation.

Science teaches that we must see in order to believe, but we must also believe in order to see.

I have learned to become not an M.D. but a 'C.D.' for the wounded people I meet. Yes, a 'Chosen Dad' who may not like their behavior but loves and reparents them and helps them to heal their lives and find self-worth and self-esteem and save their lives.

I decided to become a surgeon named Bernie who writes books and gives seminars to teach people what he has learned and is still learning about how to deal with life's difficulties.

The doctor that acts out of love doesn't burn out. He or she may get tired physically, but not emotionally.

Love and kindness are the basis of my religious beliefs. The rituals and outward signs are not as important as one's actions and deeds. Religion should be a path to God, not something to fight about.

Unconditional love is the most powerful stimulant to the immune system.

If you love people, you'll enjoy your life. If you don't, you won't love anything you do.

We participate and are responsible for a lot of the things that happen to us. If you hate your job, you are much more likely to get sick and die at a younger age than someone who's happy at work and has a nice family life and is mentally well adjusted.

Traditional doctors say I'm a mystic. I don't deny it.

Patients want to be seen as people. For me, the person's life comes first; the disease is simply one aspect of it, which I can guide my patients to use as a redirection in their lives. When doctors look at their patients, however, they are trained to see only the disease.

As doctors, we are not trained to communicate and understand the power of our words as they relate to a patient's ability and desire to survive.

True inspiration overrides all fears. When you are inspired, you enter a trance state and can accomplish things that you may never have felt capable of doing.

Physicians need to be good technicians and know how to prescribe, but for healing to occur they also need to incorporate philosophy and spirituality into their treatment. We need to feel as well as think.

We have to create perfection through love

If you talk to your body, it will listen.

If God had made a perfect world, it would be a magic trick, not creation, with no meaning or place for us to learn and create. Mankind is not yet ready for a perfect world. We do not know how to appreciate perfection.

I think some people do want to die, and they will get a disease. There are people who know their lives are so troubled, and their bodies are getting them out of here.

Life is a miracle, and we need to not fear trying to achieve our potential and reveal the remarkable creation we and all living things are and that our Creator has built into us the ability to induce self-healing.

Medicine is a very tough thing. I mean, everyone is going to die. Sooner or later. That's a tough thing to face.