Physicians From England

"Beware of language, for it is often a great cheat."

"Truth in all its kinds is most difficult to win; and truth in medicine is the most difficult of all."

"There is nothing so captivating as new knowledge."

"The practice of physic is jostled by quacks on the one side, and by science on the other."

"Perfect health, like perfect beauty, is a rare thing; and so, it seems, is perfect disease."

"Poisons and medicine are oftentimes the same substance given with different intents."

"People in general have no notion of the sort and amount of evidence often needed to prove the simplest matter of fact."

"It is the great mystery of life itself which is at the bottom of all the mysterious language we are obliged to employ concerning it."

"It would be a great thing to understand pain in all its meanings."

"It is no easy task to pick one's way from truth to truth through besetting errors."

"Faith and knowledge lean largely upon each other in the practice of medicine."

"It takes as much time and trouble to pull down a falsehood as to build up a truth."

"Few would have predicted that the discovery of the circulation of the blood would have changed the way philosophers view the world, theologians conceive of God, or astronomers look at the stars, yet all of that happened."

"I appeal to your own eyes as my witness and judge."

"As art is a habit with reference to things to be done, so is science a habit in respect to things to be known."

"I avow myself the partisan of truth alone."

"I profess both to learn and to teach anatomy, not from books but from dissections; not from positions of philosophers but from the fabric of nature."

"The studious and good and true, never suffer their minds to be warped by the passions of hatred and envy, which unfit men duly to weigh the arguments that are advanced in behalf of truth, or to appreciate the proposition that is even fairly demonstrated. Neither do they think it unworthy of them to change their opinion if truth and undoubted demonstration require them to do so. They do not esteem it discreditable to desert error, though sanctioned by the highest antiquity, for they know full well that to err, to be deceived, is human; that many things are discovered by accident and that many may be learned indifferently from any quarter, by an old man from a youth, by a person of understanding from one of inferior capacity."

"Very many maintain that all we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains unknown; nor do philosophers pin their faith to others' precepts in such wise that they lose their liberty, and cease to give credence to the conclusions of their proper senses. Neither do they swear such fealty to their mistress Antiquity that they openly, and in sight of all, deny and desert their friend Truth. But even as they see that the credulous and vain are disposed at the first blush to accept and believe everything that is proposed to them, so do they observe that the dull and unintellectual are indisposed to see what lies before their eyes, and even deny the light of the noon-day sun."

"The heart of animals is the foundation of their life, the sovereign of everything within them, the sun of their microcosm, that upon which all growth depends, from which all power proceeds."

"Harvey was not content merely to gather knowledge; he digested and arranged it under the guidance of the faculties which compare and reason. … Harvey appears to have possessed, in a remarkable degree, the power of persuading and conciliating those with whom he came in contact. In the whole course of his long life we hear nothing either of personal enemies or personal enmities … one of the great men whom God, in virtue of his eternal laws, bids to appear on earth from time to time to enlighten, and to ennoble mankind."

"Harvey sought for truth in Truth's own book — Creation — which by God himself was writ; And wisely thought 'twas fit Not to read comments only upon it, But on th' original itself to look. Methinks in Art's great circle others stand Lock'd up together hand in hand: Every one leads as he is led, The same bare path they tread, A dance like that of Fairies, a fantastic round, With neither change of motion nor of ground. Had Harvey to this road confined his wit, His noble circle of the blood had been untrodden yet."

"Man comes into the world naked and unarmed, as if nature had destined him for a social creature, and ordained him to live under equitable laws and in peace; as if she had desired that he should be guided by reason rather than be driven by force; therefore did she endow him with understanding, and furnish him with hands, that he might himself contrive what was necessary to his clothing and protection. To those animals to which nature has given vast strength, she has also presented weapons in harmony with their powers; to those that are not thus vigorous, she has given ingenuity, cunning, and singular dexterity in avoiding injury."

"Almost in every kingdom the most ancient families have been at first princes' bastards; their worthiest captains, best wits, greatest scholars, bravest spirits in all our annals, have been base [born]."

"Set a beggar on horseback and he will ride a gallop."

"Fabricius finds certain spots and clouds in the sun."

"Christ himself was poor... And as he was himself, so he informed his apostles and disciples, they were all poor, prophets poor, apostles poor."

"Who cannot give good counsel? 'Tis cheap, it costs them nothing."

"Many things happen between the cup and the lip."

"What can't be cured must be endured."

"Everything, saith Epictetus, hath two handles,—the one to be held by, the other not."

"For ignorance is the mother of devotion, as all the world knows, and these times can amply witness."

"The fear of some divine and supreme powers keeps men in obedience."

"Out of too much learning become mad."

"The Devil himself, which is the author of confusion and lies."

"Isocrates adviseth Demonicus, when he came to a strange city, to worship by all means the gods of the place."

"When they are at Rome, they do there as they see done."

"One religion is as true as another."

"Melancholy and despair, though often, do not always concur; there is much difference: melancholy fears without a cause, this upon great occasion; melancholy is caused by fear and grief, but this torment procures them and all extremity of bitterness."

"A good conscience is a continual feast."

"Our conscience, which is a great ledger book, wherein are written all our offenses...grinds our souls with the remembrance of some precedent sins, makes us reflect upon, accuse and condemn ourselves."

"They have cheveril consciences that will stretch."

"What physic, what chirurgery, what wealth, favor, authority can relieve, bear out, assuage, or expel a troubled conscience? A quiet mind cureth all them, but all they cannot comfort a distressed soul: who can put to silence the voice of desperation?"

"Be not solitary, be not idle."

"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied."

"All my joys to this are folly Naught so sweet as melancholy."

"The Chinese say that we Europeans have one eye, they themselves two, all the world else is blinde."

"I had a heavy heart and an ugly head, a kind of impostume in my head, which I was very desirous to be unladen of."

"I would help others, out of a fellow-feeling."

"They lard their lean books with the fat of others' works."