William Osler

Observe, record, tabulate, communicate. Use your five senses. Learn to see, learn to hear, learn to feel, learn to smell, and know that by practice alone you can become expert.

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.

One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.

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

The young physician starts life with 20 drugs for each disease, and the old physician ends life with one drug for 20 diseases.

Let each hour of the day have its allotted duty, and cultivate that power of concentration which grows with its exercise.

Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability.

Look wise, say nothing, and grunt. Speech was given to conceal thought.

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

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.

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

It is not... That some people do not know what to do with truth when it is offered to them, But the tragic fate is to reach, after patient search, a condition of mind-blindness, in which. The truth is not recognized, though it stares you in the face.

The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.

The future belongs to Science. More and more she will control the destinies of the nations. Already she has them in her crucible and on her balances.

The hardest conviction to get into the mind of a beginner is that the education upon which he is engaged is not a college course, not a medical course, but a life course, for which the work of a few years under teachers is but a preparation.

Faith is a most precious commodity, without which we should be very badly off.

The very first step towards success in any occupation is to become interested in it.

What is the student but a lover courting a fickle mistress who ever eludes his grasp?

The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.

Be calm and strong and patient. Meet failure and disappointment with courage. Rise superior to the trials of life, and never give in to hopelessness or despair. In danger, in adversity, cling to your principles and ideals. Aequanimitas!

Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day's work absorb your entire energies, and satisfy your widest ambition.