A miracle drug is any drug that will do what the label says it will do.

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

The doctor should be opaque to his patients and, like a mirror, should show them nothing but what is shown to him.

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.

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

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

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

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.

The physician should look upon the patient as a besieged city and try to rescue him with every means that art and science place at his command.

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.

To be sick is to enjoy monarchal prerogatives.

In the name of Hippocrates doctors have invented the most exquisite form of torture ever known to man: survival.

You can’t find the soul with a scalpel.