I am dying with the help of too many physicians.
—Alexander the Great, c. 323 BCQuotes
When the physician said to him, “You have lived to be an old man,” he said, “That is because I never employed you as my physician.”
—Pausanias, c. 450 BCKeep away from physicians. It is all probing and guessing and pretending with them. They leave it to nature to cure in her own time, but they take the credit. As well as very fat fees.
—Anthony Burgess, 1964Well now, there’s a remedy for everything except death.
—Miguel de Cervantes, 1605He is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1833I have yet, I believe, some years in store, for I have a good state of health and a happy mind, and I take care of both by nourishing the first with temperance and the latter with abundance. This, I believe, you will allow to be the true philosophy of life.
—Thomas Paine, 1803Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.
—James Madison, 1794The best physician is he who can distinguish the possible from the impossible.
—Herophilus, c. 290 BCHow many desolate creatures on the earth have learnt the simple dues of fellowship and social comfort in a hospital.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1857A miracle drug is any drug that will do what the label says it will do.
—Eric Hodgins, 1964Medication alone is not to be relied on. In one half the cases medicine is not needed, or is worse than useless. Obedience to spiritual and physical laws—hygiene of the body and hygiene of the spirit—is the surest warrant for health and happiness.
—Harriot K. Hunt, 1856There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them.
—Sylvia Plath, 1963You can’t find the soul with a scalpel.
—Gustave Flaubert, c. 1880