Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.
I observe the physician with the same diligence as the disease.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the importance of understanding both the healer and the ailment for a complete perspective on health.
In this quote, John Donne emphasizes the significance of closely studying both the physician and the disease they treat. This suggests that true understanding of health and healing comes not just from examining the illness itself but also recognizing the role and approach of the caregiver. By observing the physician as diligently as the disease, one can gain insights into the healing process, balancing the study of both entities for a more holistic comprehension of health.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be delivered during a medical conference to emphasize the relationship between doctors and their patients.
More from John Donne
All quotes βReason is our soul's left hand, Faith her right, By these we reach divinity
All occasions invite His mercies, and all times are His seasons.
If poisonous minerals, and if that tree, Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us, If lecherous goats, if serpents envious Cannot be damned; alas; why should I be?
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
I call not that virginity a virtue, which resideth onely in the bodies integrity; much less if it be with a purpose of perpetually keeping it: for then it is a most inhumane vice. - But I call that Virginity a virtue which is willing and desirous to yield it self upon honest and lawfull terms, when just reason requireth; and until then, is kept with a modest chastity of body and mind.
Similar quotes
It was a time when only the dead smiled, happy in their peace.
What is 'grace'? It is God's own life, shared by us. God's life is love. Deus caritas est. By grace we are able to share in the infinitely selfless love of Him Who is such pure actuality that He needs nothing and therefore cannot conceivably exploit anything for selfish ends. Indeed, outside of Him there is nothing, and whatever exists exists by His free gift of its being, so that one of the notions that is absolutely contradictory to the perfection of God is selfishness.
The foundations of the world are to be found, not in the cognitive experience of conscious thought, but in the aesthetic experience of everyday life.
There is magic in my universe, but it's pretty low magic compared to other fantasies.
I think that if you were to probe a lot of people's religious opinions, they would not be as religious as the numbers would suggest.
the better angels of our nature