Well now, there’s a remedy for everything except death.

No families take so little medicine as those of doctors, except those of apothecaries.

Let the young know they will never find a more interesting, more instructive book than the patient himself.

He is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.

Health indeed is a precious thing, to recover and preserve which we undergo any misery, drink bitter potions, freely give our goods—restore a man to his health, his purse lies open to thee.

The doctor occupies a seat in the front row of the stalls of the human drama, and is constantly watching and even intervening in the tragedies, comedies, and tragicomedies which form the raw material of the literary art.

Be temperate in wine, in eating, girls, and sloth, or the Gout will seize you.

You can’t find the soul with a scalpel.

I am dying with the help of too many physicians.

Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.

To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.

Medication 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.

I 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.