Quotes from William Osler

Soap and water and common sense are the best disinfectants.

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.

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.

One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.... Soap and water and common sense are the best disinfectants.

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

The future is today.

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.

Few diseases present greater difficulties in the way of diagnosis than malignant endocarditis, difficulties which in many cases are practi- cally insurmountable. It is no disparagement to the many skilled physicians who have put their cases upon record to say that, in fully one-half the diagnosis was made post mortem.

Half of us are blind, few of us feel, and we are all deaf.

Study until twenty five, investigate until forty, profession until sixty, at which age I would have him retired on a double allowance.

There is a form of laughter that springs from the heart, heard every day in the merry voice of childhood, the expression of a laughter -- loving spirit that defies analysis by the philosopher, which has nothing rigid or mechanical in it, and totally without social significance. Bubbling spontaneously from the heart of child or man. Without egotism and full of feeling, laughter is the music of life.

To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals -- this alone is worth the struggle.

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

the person who takes medicine must recover twice,once from the disease ,and once from the medicine.

The best preparation for tomorrow is to do today's work superbly well.

Acquire the art of detachment, the virtue of method, and the quality of thoroughness, but above all the grace of humility.

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

Ask not what disease the person has, but rather what person the disease has

He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all

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.

Listen to your patient; he is telling you the diagnosis.

One special advantage of the skeptical attitude of mind is that a man is never vexed to find that after all he has been in the wrong.

Shut out all of your past except that which will help you weather your tomorrows.

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