William Osler

To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals - this alone is worth the struggle.

No human being is constituted to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and even the best of men must be content with fragments, with partial glimpses, never the full fruition.

To study the phenomena of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all.

Without faith a man can do nothing; with it all things are possible.

The clean tongue, the clear head, and the bright eye are birthrights of each day.

Engrossed late and soon in professional cares, getting and spending, you may may so lay waste your powers that you may find, too late, with hearts given away, that t here is no place in your habit-stricken souls for those gentler influences which make your life worth living.

Variability is the law of life, and as no two faces are the same, so no two bodies are alike, and no two individuals react alike and behave alike under the abnormal conditions which we know as disease.

In seeking absolute truth we aim at the unattainable and must be content with broken portions.

It is much simpler to buy books than to read them and easier to read them than to absorb their contents.

We are all dietetic sinners; only a small percent of what we eat nourishes us; the balance goes to waste and loss of energy.

Fed on the dry husks of facts, the human heart has a hidden want which science cannot supply.

Now of the difficulties bound up with the public in which we doctors work, I hesitate to speak in a mixed audience. Common sense in matters medical is rare, and is usually in inverse ratio to the degree of education.

Think not of the amount to be accomplished, the difficulties to be overcome, or the end to be attained, but set earnestly at the little task at your elbow, letting that be sufficient for the day.

The successful teacher is no longer on a height, pumping knowledge at high pressure into passive receptacles.