The art of medicine was to be properly learned only from its practice and its exercise.
Thomas SydenhamRead
Lastly, he must remember that he himself hath no exemption from the common lot, but that he is bound by the same laws of mortality, and liable to the same ailments and afflictions with his fellows.
Interpretation
Everyone is subject to the same mortal experiences and challenges in life.
This quote by Thomas Sydenham emphasizes the shared human experience of mortality and vulnerability. It serves as a reminder that no matter one's status or accomplishments, we are all equally affected by the conditions of life, including challenges and suffering, highlighting our commonality rather than our differences.
In practice
In a speech about community and support during hard times.
The art of medicine was to be properly learned only from its practice and its exercise.
Disease is nothing else but an attempt on the part of the body to rid itself of morbific matter.
I watched what method Nature might take, with intention of subduing the symptom by treading in her footsteps.
Gout, unlike any other disease, kills more rich men than poor, more wise men than simple. Great kings, emperors, generals, admirals and philosophers have all died of gout.
The arrival of a good clown exercises a more beneficial influence upon the health of a town than twenty asses laden with drugs.
Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God’s myth where the others are men’s myths: i.e., the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call 'real things'.
A man's intentions should be allowed in some respects to plead for his actions.
Man's deliberate destruction of his own habitat -- planet Earth -- could serve as a mighty theme for a mighty book worthy of a modern Melville or Tolstoy. But our best fictioneers confine themselves to domestic drama -- soap opera with literary trimmings.
Possession of material riches, without inner peace, is like dying of thirst while bathing in a lake. If material poverty is to be avoided, spiritual poverty is to be abhorred. For it is spiritual poverty, not material lack, that lies at the core of all human suffering.
We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played.
If there's anything you absolutely hate, why, it must be unconstitutional. Or, if there's anything you absolutely have to have, it must be required by the Constitution. That's where we are. That is utterly mindless.
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