Quotes about doctor (752 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“How can you say young girls don't get it? They're our future. Our future doctors, lawyers, mothers, presidents, they kind of keep the world going.”

Harry Styles (1994) English singer, songwriter, and actor

Interview by Cameron Crowe in Rolling Stone (18 April 2017) http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/harry-styles-opens-up-about-famous-flings-honest-new-lp-w476928
Context: Who's to say that young girls who like pop music – short for popular, right? – have worse musical taste than a 30-year-old hipster guy? That's not up to you to say. Music is something that's always changing. There's no goal posts. Young girls like the Beatles. You gonna tell me they're not serious? How can you say young girls don't get it? They're our future. Our future doctors, lawyers, mothers, presidents, they kind of keep the world going. Teenage-girl fans – they don't lie. If they like you, they're there. They don't act 'too cool.' They like you, and they tell you. Which is sick.

World , Girl , Future

“Following the enormous conjecture in the press over the last two weeks, I wish to confirm that I have been tested HIV positive and have AIDS. I felt it correct to keep this information private to date to protect the privacy of those around me. However, the time has come now for my friends and fans around the world to know the truth and I hope that everyone will join with my doctors and all those worldwide in the fight against this terrible disease. My privacy has always been very special to me and I am famous for my lack of interviews. Please understand this policy will continue.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

Statement to the press (23 November 1991), the day before his death, as quoted at The Biography Channel http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_story/338:294/1/Freddie_Mercury.htm.

Truth , World , Disease , Hope

“An ignorant doctor is the aide-de-camp of death.”

Avicenna (980–1037) medieval Persian polymath, physician, and philosopher

As quoted in Familiar Medical Quotations (1968) by Maurice B. Strauss

Death

“When the interests of mankind are at stake, they will obey with joy the man whom they believe to be wiser than themselves. You may prove this on all sides: you may see how the sick man will beg the doctor to tell him what he ought to do, how a whole ship’s company will listen to the pilot.”

Xenophon book Cyropaedia

Bk. 1, ch. 6; as translated by Henry Graham Dakyns in Cyropaedia (2004) p. 29.
Cyropaedia, 4th Century BC
Context: That... is the road to the obedience of compulsion. But there is a shorter way to a nobler goal, the obedience of the will. When the interests of mankind are at stake, they will obey with joy the man whom they believe to be wiser than themselves. You may prove this on all sides: you may see how the sick man will beg the doctor to tell him what he ought to do, how a whole ship’s company will listen to the pilot.

Joy

“That ... is the road to the obedience of compulsion. But there is a shorter way to a nobler goal, the obedience of the will. When the interests of mankind are at stake, they will obey with joy the man whom they believe to be wiser than themselves. You may prove this on all sides: you may see how the sick man will beg the doctor to tell him what he ought to do, how a whole ship’s company will listen to the pilot.”

Xenophon book Cyropaedia

Bk. 1, ch. 6; as translated by Henry Graham Dakyns in Cyropaedia (2004) p. 29.
Cyropaedia, 4th Century BC

Way , Joy , Relation ships

“We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy the economy.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

Health , Religion , Justice , Knowledge

“Even the Russians are fighting us. They've brought in Jewish pilots, nurses, and doctors. Everybody's ganging up on us. We didn't think it would happen this way.”

Josef Mengele (1911–1979) Nazi officer and physician

As quoted in Defy the darkness: A Tale of Courage in the Shadow of Mengele (2000) by Joe Rosenblum and David Kohn, p. 192

Way , Thinking , Fight

“I mean some doctor told me I had six months to live and I went to their funeral.”

Keith Richards (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

“The first task of the doctor is… political: the struggle against disease must begin with a war against bad government." Man will be totally and definitively cured only if he is first liberated…”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Source: The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception

War , Disease

“My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre and that I am therefore excused from saving universes.”

Douglas Adams Life, the Universe and Everything

Source: Life, the Universe and Everything

Nature , Universe

“The truth of life is that, even the doctor needs a doctor.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Truth , Life

“When we are uncomfortable or anything unpleasant happens, we look to take refuge in something. Usually, we turn to food, alcohol, sex, drugs, money, power, or relationships. But none of these things give us the lasting protection or satisfaction you're looking for. When you understand you can't find lasting happiness in Samsara, then the desire to find true refuge becomes strong. In Buddhism, we take refuge in the three jewels — the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. The Buddha is like the doctor who understands your disease and knows how to treat it; the Dharma, his teachings, is the medicine he prescribes; and the Sangha is the spiritual community that helps you to take the medicine. To take refuge is to finally seek protection from suffering in a way that can really help you. When we think about the ultimate nature of reality and what causes us to suffer — this is the true meaning of refuge.”

Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician

Source: Discovering Buddhism, 2004 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=226w04QMPzQ

Communication , Understanding , Nature , Thinking

“Our dreams have been doctored. We belong no where. We sail unanchored on troubled seas. We may never be allowed ashore. Our sorrows will never be sad enough. Our joys never happy enough. Our dreams never big enough. Our lives never important enough. To matter..”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Sadness , Dreams , Joy , Sea

“I told the doctor I broke my leg in two places. He told me to stop going to those places.”

Henny Youngman (1906–1998) American comedian

“The person who does not control his territory does not control his existence. If someone is not conscious, he is taken over, not only outwardly but also with the thoughts that assault him. He is very vulnerable to desires and feelings. For example, you live calmly with your wife, and then—catastrophe! Suddenly you lose control because you have fallen in love with another. You don't have to fall victim to that reality; what you have to do is navigate in it, overcome the winds and sandstorms. Amid the storms at sea and the signs, you must move forward calmly and look toward the port you're heading for. In New York, when I was filming The Holy Mountain, I had problems of all sorts. I soaked six or seven T-Shirts a night with my sweat. I went to see a Chinese sage that someone had recommended. He was a poet, a great master of tai chi, and a doctor. When he first saw me, he said, "What is your purpose in life?" I was disconcerted and did not answer. He continued, "If you do not tell me what is your purpose in life, I cannot heal you."”

Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929) Filmmaker and comics writer

So I understood that if a ship crosses the sea without a purpose, it will arrive at no port. What prevents life from devouring us is having a purpose. The higher it is, the further it will carry us...
Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy (2010)

Love , Life , Feeling , Mountain

“Your honor, it is over now. This has never been a case of trying to get free. I didn't ever want freedom. Frankly, I wanted death for myself. This was a case to tell the world that I did what I did not for reasons of hate, I hated no one. I know I was sick or evil, or both. Now I believe I was sick. The doctors have told me about my sickness and now I have some peace.”

Jeffrey Dahmer (1960–1994) American serial killer, cannibal and necrophile

Closing statement after trial sentencing. video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnuSl8PNYqc

Death , Hate , World , Peace

“The heavyweight boxer Evander Holyfield, banned from boxing because of a heart condition, went to a Benny Hinn crusade in Philadelphia, had Hinn lay hands on him, and gave Hinn a check for $265,000 after he was told he was healed. In fact, he passed his next examination by the boxing commission, but later his doctors said he never had a heart condition in the first place – he had been misdiagnosed.”

Benny Hinn (1952) American-Canadian evangelist

About

Heart , Box

“The Doctor does have some long speeches and he talks very quickly. Learning all his babble can take a while, but it's very well written babble so I don't mind and you do get quicker. When I filmed Recovery during the break in Doctor Who I would sit down at the weekend and learn the script in an hour and I was like 'Hang on??”

David Tennant (1971) Scottish actor

You do get used to it though.
Davidtennant.com exclusive interview (February 2007) http://www.team-tennant.com/article/id154.html

Learning

“For the history of the centuries that have passed since the birth of Christ nowhere reveals conditions like those of the present. There has never been such building and planting in the world. There has never been such gluttonous and varied eating and drinking as now. Wearing apparel has reached its limit in costliness. Who has ever heard of such commerce as now encircles the earth? There have arisen all kinds of art and sculpture, embroidery and engraving, the like of which has not been seen during the whole Christian era. In addition men are so delving into the mysteries of things that today a boy of twenty knows more than twenty doctors formerly knew.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent, Luke 21:25-36 (1522) http://www.trinitylutheranms.org/MartinLuther/MLSermons/mlserms_original.html, as translated in The Precious and Sacred Writings of Martin Luther (1905) edited by John Nicholas Lenker

Men , World , Art , History

“If it were art to overcome heresy with fire, the executioners would be the most learned doctors on earth.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

To the Christian Nobility of the German States (1520), translated by Charles M. Jacobs, reported in rev. James Atkinson, The Christian in Society, I (Luther's Works, ed. James Atkinson, vol. 44), p. 207 (1966)

Art , Learning

“I’m a good person but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person but a good writer. We’d make a good team. I don’t want to ask you any favors, but if you have time – and from what I saw, you have plenty – I was wondering if you could write a eulogy for Hazel. I’ve got notes and everything, but if you could just make it into a coherent whole or whatever? Or even just tell me what I should say differently. Here’s the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That’s what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease. I want to leave a mark. But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, “They’ll remember me now,” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion. (Okay, maybe I’m not such a shitty writer. But I can’t pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.) We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can’t stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it’s silly and useless – epically useless in my current state – but I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either. People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, Van Houten. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm. The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn’t actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn’t get smallpox. After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I just walked in behind a nurse with a badge and I got to sit next to her for like ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die, too. It was brutal: the incessant mechanized haranguing of intensive care. She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark almost blue color, and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar. A nurse guy came in and told me I had to leave, that visitors weren’t allowed, and I asked if she was doing okay, and the guy said, “She’s still taking on water.””

John Green book The Fault in Our Stars

A desert blessing, an ocean curse. What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers."
Augustus "Gus" Waters, p. 310-313
The Fault in Our Stars (2012)

Love , Death , War , People

“The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, "Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it's not a problem." If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant. You take action.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Testimony before Congress (21 March 2007), as quoted in "Gore Implores Congress To Save The Planet" at CBS Evening News (21 March 2007) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/21/politics/main2591104.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_2591104

Problem , Science , Reading , Baby

“God has seen your tears and heard your prayers. Do not grieve. The Little One will not die. Do not allow the doctors to bother him too much.”

Grigori Rasputin (1869–1916) Russian mystic

As quoted in Rasputin: The Untold Story By Joseph T. Fuhrmann p.100

God , Tear

“I had a bad PCP [angel dust] experience when I was 14 and I got panic disorder. And of course, I wasn’t telling anyone the truth. It’s not like you go to your dad or your doctor and say, “Yeah, I smoked PCP and I’m having a bad time.” So I became more or less agoraphobic because I’d have flashbacks. From 14 to 16, I didn’t have any friends. I stayed home most of the time. Up till then life was pretty great. The world was big and I felt I could do anything I wanted. Suddenly, I felt like I couldn’t do anything. But in the isolation, my imagination really had time to run. I never did any drugs until my late 20s. Unfortunately, being a child of two alcoholics, I started drinking a lot, and that’s what eventually got me back into drugs. You often hear that pot leads to harder drugs. But I think alcohol is what leads you to everything, because it takes away the fear. The worst drug experimentation I ever did was because I was drunk and didn’t care.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

Talking about drugs, quoted in **
Audioslave Era

Life , Alcohol , Truth , World

“No one I met at this time — doctors, nurses, practicantes, or fellow-patients — failed to assure me that a man who is hit through the neck and survives it is the luckiest creature alive. I could not help thinking that it would be even luckier not to be hit at all.”

George Orwell book Homage to Catalonia

Homage to Catalonia (1938)

Thinking , Time , Help

“The doctor's aim is to do good, even to our enemies, so much more to our friends”

Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (865–925) Persian polymath, physician, alchemist and chemist, philosopher

Islamic Science, the Scholar and Ethics http://www.muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?ArticleID=570, Foundation for Science Technology and Civilisation.
Context: The doctor's aim is to do good, even to our enemies, so much more to our friends, and my profession forbids us to do harm to our kindred, as it is instituted for the benefit and welfare of the human race, and God imposed on physicians the oath not to compose mortiferous remedies.

“The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, 'It's a girl.”

Shirley Chisholm (1924–2005) American politician

Reported in Anthology : Quotations and Sayings of People of Color (1973) by Walter B. Hoard, p. 36.

Girl

“The doctor of the future will be oneself.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Future

“Each patient carries his own doctor inside him.”

Norman Cousins (1915–1990) American journalist

Source: Anatomy of an Illness

“Many who are self-taught far excel the doctors, masters, and bachelors of the most renowned universities.”

Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) austrian economist

Universe

“do you think it is
better to be clever than to be good?”
“Good for what?” asked the Doctor. “You are good for
nothing unless you are clever.”

Henry James book Washington Square

Source: Washington Square

Thinking

“Doctors always think anybody doing something they aren't is a quack; also they think all patients are idiots.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Thinking

“Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Funny

“No matter what measures are taken, doctors will sometimes falter, and it isn't reasonable to ask that we achieve perfection. What is reasonable is to ask that we never cease to aim for it.”

Atul Gawande book Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science

Source: Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science

Perfection

“When did you become a woman?"-Hatori
How dare you ask that after you have seen me naked so many times…"-Yuki
GASP! No it cant be! Yuki-kun, does that mean…" fan club girls
NO! He's my doctor…"Yuki”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Source: Fruits Basket, Vol. 2

Girl , Time

“You see, Doctor, God didn't kill that little girl. Fate didn't butcher her and destiny didn't feed her to those dogs. If God saw what any of us did that night he didn't seem to mind. From then on I knew… God doesn't make the world this way. We do.”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

God , Fate , World , Dogs

“The next day, Greg is so large that he cannot even ride the car to school because he can't fit in the car. His parents believe this to have been caused by a food allergy and resolve to take him to the doctor later.”

R.L. Stine book Say Cheese and Die!

Source: Say Cheese and Die!

School , Food , Cars , Parent

“If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Variant: If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster. Časopis LIFE, január 1984

“My doctor told me to watch my drinking. Now I drink in front of a mirror.”

Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) American actor and comedian

Source: It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime of No Respect but Plenty of Sex and Drugs

Funny , Drink

“I can't die yet, doctor. Not yet. I have things to do. Afterwords I'll have a whole lifetime in which to die.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Angel's Game

Source: The Angel's Game

“Moist was sure doctors keep skeletons around to cow patients. Nyer, nyer, we know what you look underneath…”

Terry Pratchett book Going Postal

Source: Going Postal

“Somewhere in the world is… The world's worst doctor and he could be yours.”

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer

World

“When I was a boy a farmer's wife who lived five miles from our village had great fame as a faith-doctor—that was what she called herself. Sufferers came to her from all around, and she laid her hand upon them and said, "Have faith—it is all that is necessary," and they went away well of their ailments. She was not a religious woman, and pretended to no occult powers. She said that the patient's faith in her did the work. Several times I saw her make immediate cures of severe toothaches. My mother was the patient. In Austria there is a peasant who drives a great trade in this sort of industry, and has both the high and the low for patients. He gets into prison every now and then for practising without a diploma, but his business is as brisk as ever when he gets out, for his work is unquestionably successful and keeps his reputation high. In Bavaria there is a man who performed so many great cures that he had to retire from his profession of stage-carpentering in order to meet the demand of his constantly increasing body of customers. He goes on from year to year doing his miracles, and has become very rich. He pretends to no religious helps, no supernatural aids, but thinks there is something in his make-up which inspires the confidence of his patients, and that it is this confidence which does the work, and not some mysterious power issuing from himself.”

Mark Twain Christian Science

Source: Christian Science (1907), Ch. 4

Faith , Confidence , Boy , Business

“But what we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that exists in the system that's not making anybody's mom better, that is loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care, that at least we can let doctors know and your mom know, that you know what, maybe this isn't going to help, maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.

And those kinds of decisions between doctors and patients, and making sure that our incentives are not preventing those good decisions and that the doctors and hospitals all are aligned for patient care — that's something we can achieve.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009-06-24
Questions for the President: Prescription for America
ABC News
TV
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/HealthCare/story?id=7920012
2009

Moms , Decision , Help

“Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promises only; pain we obey.”

Marcel Proust book In Search of Lost Time

http://books.google.com/books?id=PSmIRcmLPSQC&q=%22illness+is+the+doctor+to+whom+we+pay+most+heed+to+kindness+to+knowledge+we+make+promises+only+pain+we+obey%22&pg=PA131#v=onepage
La maladie est le plus écouté des médecins: à la bonté, au savoir on ne fait que promettre; on obéit à la souffrance.
http://books.google.com/books?id=bfwLAAAAIAAJ&q=%22La+maladie+est+le+plus+%C3%A9cout%C3%A9+des+m%C3%A9decins+%C3%A0+la+bont%C3%A9+au+savoir+on+ne+fait+que+promettre+on+ob%C3%A9it+%C3%A0+la+souffrance%22&pg=PA160#v=onepage
Pt. II, Ch. 1
In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol. IV: Cities of the Plain (1921-1922)

Pain , Knowledge

“For the average person, many folks who don't have health insurance initially, they're going to have to make some choices. And they might end up having to switch doctors, in part because they're saving money.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Interview with WebMD (14 March 2014) http://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/webmd-interviews-obama
2014

Money , Health , Parting , Personality

“I know what I'm about to say now is controversial, but I have to say it. This nation cannot continue turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the taking of some 4,000 unborn children's lives every day. That's one every 21 seconds. One every 21 seconds. We cannot pretend that America is preserving her first and highest ideal, the belief that each life is sacred, when we've permitted the deaths of 15 million helpless innocents since the Roe versus Wade decision. 15 million children who will never laugh, never sing, never know the joy of human love, will never strive to heal the sick, feed the poor, or make peace among nations. Abortion has denied them the first and most basic of human rights. We are all infinitely poorer for their loss. There's another grim truth we should face up to: Medical science doctors confirm that when the lives of the unborn are snuffed out, they often feel pain, pain that is long and agonizing. This nation fought a terrible war so that black Americans would be guaranteed their God-given rights. Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some could decide whether others should be free or slaves. Well, today another question begs to be asked: How can we survive as a free nation when some decide that others are not fit to live and should be done away with? I believe no challenge is more important to the character of America than restoring the right to life to all human beings. Without that right, no other rights have meaning. "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of God."”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

I will continue to support every effort to restore that protection including the Hyde-Jepsen respect life bill. I've asked for your all-out commitment, for the mighty power of your prayers, so that together we can convince our fellow countrymen that America should, can, and will preserve God's greatest gift.
Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Religious Broadcasters (30 January 1984) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=40394 · YouTube - Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Religious Broadcasters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Elph9CfsKs
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Love , Life , Death , God

“The merest schoolgirl [school girl, ] when she falls in love, has Shakespeare or Keats to speak her mind for her; but let a sufferer [try to] describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry.”

Virginia Woolf book Mrs Dalloway

Mrs Dalloway (1925)

Love , Pain , School , Girl

“The doctor begins to lose freedom.... First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then doctors aren’t equally divided geographically. So a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him, you can't live in that town. They already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it's only a short step to dictating where he will go.... All of us can see what happens once you establish the precedent that the government can determine a man's working place and his working methods, determine his employment. From here it's a short step to all the rest of socialism, to determining his pay. And pretty soon your son won't decide, when he's in school, where he will go or what he will do for a living. He will wait for the government to tell him where he will go to work and what he will do.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine (1961 LP)
1960s

School , Freedom , Waiting

“We must all educate ourselves to the reality of the horrors taking place. Doctors today know that unborn children can feel a touch within the womb and that they respond to pain.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation (1983)

Pain , Children , Education , Feeling

“Every man is his own doctor of divinity, in the last resort.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book An Inland Voyage

An Inland Voyage (1878).

“From henceforth, no medicine, no doctors, no drugs of any kind shall come into this house. \”

Smith Wigglesworth (1859–1947) British evangelist

Pledging his commitment to Faith Healing.
Page 38
The Complete Story: A New Biography on the Apostle of Faith By Julian Wilson http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=e2RWZpOHfmoC|Wigglesworth:

Housing

“For cruelty to animals, vegetarianism is the great thing to get rid of that. For the planet, to prevent depleting the water and the land and everything, it’s a great idea. And I think it’s a great thing for your health, and doctors nowadays agree with that. There are plenty of great books and organizations, so no matter where you are, there is someone to help you. That’s your first step, and I think your second step is just look in the supermarket for good vegetarian food, and I think it’s so much more readily available now.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

Sir Paul McCartney and PETA VP Dan Mathews Reflect on Two Decades of Activism http://www.peta.org/features/paul-mccartney-interview/ (April 2005)

Health , Books , Food , Idea

“I would quite like to try my hand at directing although I would do it in the theatre rather than in TV or film. Theatre is more just about telling the story. I understand the way the theatre works. I will leave the TV to the experts. Doctor Who is very complicated to direct. It would be impossible to direct that and act in it as well.”

David Tennant (1971) Scottish actor

About being on the other side of the camera, in Davidtennant.com exclusive interview (February 2007)

Way , Understanding

“I was so ugly when I was born, the doctor slapped my mother”

Henny Youngman (1906–1998) American comedian

101 of My Funniest Jokes. New York: Henny Youngman (1976). Brochure..
Source: Cited in: Essays of an Information Scientist, Vol:4, p.515-518, 1979-80, Current Comments #26, p. 516, June 30, 1980 PDF http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/v4p515y1979-80.pdf

“Alternate version: The noble souls of the victorious traverse the heavens and join in the dance of immaterial the beings. Their bodies are not hidden away each in its single grave, but the cities and villages that have divided them among themselves call them saviors of souls and bodies and doctors and honor them as protectors of cities and guardians and treat them as ambassadors before the master of the universe and through them receive divine gifts. And even though the body has been divided, the grace has remained undivided, and that minute relic possesses the same power as the martyr, just as if he had never in any way been divided.”

Theodoret (393–458) Syrian bishop

Sermon on the Martyrs (de Martyribus), ch. 8, in, The Cure of Pagan Maladies (Cure of the Pagan Diseases; Cure for Hellenic Maladies; Cure of Greek Maladies; Cure of Pagan Ills). [Graecorum affectionum curatio, Graecarum affectionum curatio, Graecarum affect. Curatio, Graec. Aff. cur.], (ante A.D. 449)
The Faith of the Early Fathers, 1998, W. A. Jurgens, Liturgical Press, ISBN 9780814610213 ISBN 9780814610213vol. 3, p. 241. http://books.google.com/books?id=rkvLsueY_DwC&pg=PA241&dq=%22ambassadors+before+the+Master+of+the+universe%22&hl=en&ei=5X4TTpjVG6OmsQL9m-TUDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22ambassadors%20before%20the%20Master%20of%20the%20universe%22&f=false
The Ruin of the Roman Empire: A New History, 2009, James J. O'Donnell, Ecco, ISBN 0060787414 ISBN 9780060787417p. 319. http://books.google.com/books?id=MEd-_14ZZmEC&pg=PT332&dq=%22honor+them+as+protectors+of+cities+and+guardians%22&hl=en&ei=1NUjTvf4EbSLsALVp62fAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22honor%20them%20as%20protectors%20of%20cities%20and%20guardians%22&f=false More variants http://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&tbo=1&q=%22call+them+saviors+of+souls+and+bodies%22&btnG=Search+Books#sclient=psy&hl=en&tbo=1&tbm=bks&source=hp&q=%22saviours+of+souls%22+theodoret&aq=&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=69360d7032f70ec5&biw=1270&bih=696
Greek and Latin text in, in J.P. Migne, PL vol. 83 (vol. 4 of Theodoret’s works), col. 1011. http://books.google.com/books?id=fb8UAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1011&dq=%22corpora+non+singula%22+monumenta&hl=en&ei=U8EUToTbJ8eusAKIiuDUDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%22corpora%20non%20singula%22%20monumenta&f=false
Note that the Protestant Reformers Heinrich Bullinger and John Calvin believed that Christians ministers, through the operation of grace, may legitimately be called "saviors." http://books.google.com/books?id=McQogZjrU0AC&pg=PA95&dq=%22For+this+cause+ministers+are+called+saviours%22&hl=en&ei=2zEnTp2XNKqHsgLvwsA7&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22For%20this%20cause%20ministers%20are%20called%20saviours%22&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=YyJVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA424&dq=%22minister+of+the+word+is+said+in+some+way+to+save+those+whom+he+leads+to+the+obedience+of+faith%22&hl=en&ei=PS8nTt7fNZKCsQOAwYHjCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22minister%20of%20the%20word%20is%20said%20in%20some%20way%20to%20save%20those%20whom%20he%20leads%20to%20the%20obedience%20of%20faith%22&f=false.

Way , Soul , Universe , Victory

“No one doubts—certainly not I—that the mind exercises a powerful influence over the body. From the beginning of time, the sorcerer, the interpreter of dreams, the fortune-teller, the charlatan, the quack, the wild medicine-man, the educated physician, the mesmerist, and the hypnotist have made use of the client's imagination to help them in their work. They have all recognized the potency and availability of that force. Physicians cure many patients with a bread pill; they know that where the disease is only a fancy, the patient's confidence in the doctor will make the bread pill effective.”

Mark Twain Christian Science

Book I, Ch. 4 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3187/3187-h/3187-h.htm#link2HCH0004
Christian Science (1907)

Education , Disease , Dreams , Exercises

“He carried with him the aura of a prophet, a magician, a witch doctor, a psychoanalyst, and a feared father of a Jewish home…. [H]e was the force that held the thirty-odd members of the theatre together, and made them permanent.”

Elia Kazan (1909–2003) Greek-American film and theatre director, film and theatrical producer, screenwriter, novelist

Elia Kazan: A Life (1988), p. 61 in the 1997 reprint
Quote about Lee Strasberg

Fear , Home

“You need a good bedside manner with doctors or you will get nowhere.”

William S. Burroughs book Junkie

Junkie (1953)

“Take away a man’s actual sense of manhood — which is conventionally based on the ability to work, to earn money, to be self-sufficient, to provide for children — and you’ve got to give them something else. And they did.This hideous religion that’s all over the country — these huge church-malls — that’s what substitutes for these lost towns. But that’s not a town. That’s a cult. A town is diverse, in a real way, not in this fake way we have now. A community is a butcher and a doctor, a minister, a town troublemaker. A "community" is not a bunch of people united by some grievance. That’s just self-righteousness — incredibly dangerous and antidemocratic. People have become so rigid; their opinions seem to them like themselves. When that happens (and it has happened) people can’t change their minds. If you are identified by your opinions — if that is the very basis of yourself — how can you change your mind?”

Fran Lebowitz (1950) author and public speaker from the United States

Ruminator Magazine interview with Susannah McNeely (August/September 2005).

Money , Children , People , Religion

“The most employment-intensive industry in the world is retail and our next generation needs these jobs. India has a strategy for the next generation of doctors, engineers and biotech graduates, etc. But for the country as a whole, what we need to resolve is how to create sensible jobs for undergraduates and or those even less educated”

Mukesh Ambani (1957) Indian business magnate

Mukesh Ambani on retail and SEZ plans

World , Education , Country

“I am presently at work on a dissertation dealing with the theory of international trade and foreign exchange rates. In dealing with this, studies of the intervention of recent years in the area of trade and exchange rates of different countries is of the greatest importance. I therefore hope to be able to begin a six month study tour to Switzerland, France and England at the end of May this year. After having collected the necessary material I intend — if the economic side can be arranged — during a stay of 6–12 months in England (probably Cambridge) or possibly the United States (in that case probably Harvard University) — to work out the above mentioned dissertation as a specimen for the doctoral degree in philosophy and pursue studies in general. I have not yet any detailed study plan. That should appropriately be set up after the arrival.”

Bertil Ohlin (1899–1979) Swedish economist and politician

Ohlin’s application to the Royal Academy of Sciences, January 30, 1922; Translation by Rolf G. H. Henriksson in "Eureka unter den Linden" in: Bertil Ohlin: A Centennial Celebration, 1899-1999, p. 129.
1920s

Hope , Study , Universe , Country

“I would never preach vegetarianism. It’s such a personal choice. It’s got to suit you, and be right for you: emotionally, spiritually and physically. If it’s working for you, that’s really great. … I definitely think there are some benefits. I know a lot of people that have had cancer, for example, and they’ll make a point of telling me, ‘The first thing my doctor told me to do was stop eating meat during this process.’ I think it’s interesting a doctor would suggest a vegetarian diet when you’re already sick. … I stick to a mixture of real raw, whole-food items every day. I make sure I’m eating greens every day, and nuts, and food that’s not processed. I do that every day.”

Shania Twain (1965) Canadian country pop singer-songwriter

“Shania Twain vegetarian but not about to preachify,” interview with Doug Elfman in Las Vegas Review-Journal (19 January 2014) http://www.reviewjournal.com/columns-blogs/doug-elfman/shania-twain-vegetarian-not-about-preachify.

People , Food , Thinking , Personality

“On a night full of symbols
The moon is like an invalid's pallid face
Like a mistaken shifted time
And death, like a doctor standing before the bed”

Duo Duo (1951) Poet

"Night" (1973), p. 9
The Boy who Catches Wasps (2002)

Death , Time , Night

“I hate doctors! They'll do anything — anything to keep you coming to them. They'll sell their souls! What's worse, they'll sell yours, and you never know it till one day you find yourself in hell!”

Eugene O'Neill Long Day's Journey into Night

Source: Long Day's Journey into Night (1955), Page 76 (Act 2, Scene 1)

Hate , Soul , Hell

“Now, when suffering is always the first of the arguments marshalled against life, as its most questionable feature, it is salutary to remember the times when people made the opposite assessment, because they could not do without making people suffer and saw first-rate magic in it, a veritable seductive lure to life. Perhaps pain - I say this to comfort the squeamish - did not hurt as much then as it does now; at least, a doctor would be justified in assuming this, if he had treated a Negro (taken as a representative for primeval man) for serious internal inflammations which would drive the European with the stoutest constitution to distraction; - they do not do that to Negroes. (The curve of human capacity for pain actually does seem to sink dramatically and almost precipitously beyond the first ten thousand or ten million of the cultural elite; and for myself, I do not doubt that in comparison with one night of pain endured by a single, hysterical blue stocking, the total suffering of all the animals who have been interrogated by the knife in scientific research is as nothing.)”

Friedrich Nietzsche book On the Genealogy of Morality

Essay 2, Section 7
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)

Life , Pain , People , Question

“Playing Doctor Who came as a great surprise to me. I had no idea that I would enjoy it so much. All that was required of me was to be able to speak complete gobbledygook with conviction.”

Tom Baker (1934) English actor

Idea

“I'm not a Starfleet commander, or T. J. Hooker. I don't live on Starship NCC-170… [some audience members say "1"], or own a phaser. I don't know anybody named Bones, Sulu, or Spock [picture of Dr. Benjamin Spock is shown on screen behind him]. And no, I've never had green alien sex, but I'm sure it'd be quite an evening. [Pomp and Circumstance begins playing. ] I speak English and French, not Klingon! I drink Labatt's, not Romulan Ale! And when someone says to me 'live long and prosper', I seriously mean it when I say, 'get a life'. My doctor's name is not McCoy, it's Ginsberg [nude picture of Dr. Ginsberg shown on screen]. And tribbles were puppets, not real animals. PUPPETS! And when I speak, I never, ever talk like Every. Word. Is. Its. Own. Sentence. I live in California, but I was raised in Montreal. And I believe in Priceline. com, where you never have to pay full price for airline tickets, hotels, and car rentals! I've appeared on stage at Stratford, at Carnegie Hall, Albert Hall, and the Monkland Theatre in NDG. And, yes, I've gone where no man has gone before, but… I was in Mexico and her father gave me permission! My name is William Shatner, and I am Canadian!”

William Shatner (1931) Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, author, and film director

From a Just for Laughs appearance in a parody of the popular Molson "I Am Canadian" commercials (21 July 2007) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1648058156561008324&q=i+am+canadian.

Life , Sex , Cars , Drink

“It is only at first that pity, like morphine, is a solace to the invalid, a remedy, a drug, but unless you know the correct dosage and when to stop, it becomes a virulent poison. The first few injections do good, they soothe, they deaden the pain. But the devil of it is that the organism, the body, just like the soul, has an uncanny capacity for adaptation. Just as the nervous system cries out for more and more morphine, so do the emotions cry out for more and more pity, in the end more than one can give. Inevitably there comes a moment when one has to say 'no', and then one must not mind the other person's hating one more for this ultimate refusal than if one had never helped him at all. Yes, my dear Lieutenant, one has got to keep one's pity properly in check, or it does far more harm than any amount of indifference — we doctors know that, and so do judges and myrmidons of the law and pawn-brokers; if they were all to give way to their pity, this world of ours would stand still - a dangerous thing pity, a dangerous thing!”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

Pain , Hate , World , Law

“I took opium but once — in the year of the plague, when doctors sought to deaden the agonies they could not cure. There was an overdose — my physician was worn out with horror and exertion — and I travelled very far indeed. In the end I returned and lived, but my nights are filled with strange memories, nor have I ever permitted a doctor to give me opium again.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Fiction, The Crawling Chaos (1921)

Travel , Memory , Night

“Yes, social friend, I love thee well,
In learned doctors’ spite;
Thy clouds all other clouds dispel,
And lap me in delight.”

Charles Sprague (1791–1875) Boston businessman and poet

To my Cigar, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love , Learning

“How are you, doctor, that is what we say when we do not wish to play the weakling, we say Fine, even though we may be dying, and this is commonly known as taking one's courage in both hands, a phenomenon that has only been observed in the human species.”

José Saramago book Blindness

Source: Blindness (1995), p. 32

Courage

“If you come to France and you wear a veil, if you go to one of the administrative buildings, then that's not acceptable. If you don't want your wife to be examined by a male doctor, then you're not welcome here. France is a country that's open.”

Nicolas Sarkozy (1955) 23rd President of the French Republic

Interview with Charlie Rose, televised 31 January 2007

Country

“Some sixty years ago, Pope Pius XII, in a memorable address to anaesthesiologists and intensive care specialists, stated that there is no obligation to have recourse in all circumstances to every possible remedy and that, in some specific cases, it is permissible to refrain from their use… The specific element of this criterion is that it considers “the result that can be expected, taking into account the state of the sick person and his or her physical and moral resources”. It thus makes possible a decision that is morally qualified as withdrawal of “overzealous treatment”.
Such a decision responsibly acknowledges the limitations of our mortality, once it becomes clear that opposition to it is futile. “Here one does not will to cause death; one’s inability to impede it is merely accepted” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2278). This difference of perspective restores humanity to the accompaniment of the dying, while not attempting to justify the suppression of the living. It is clear that not adopting, or else suspending, disproportionate measures, means avoiding overzealous treatment; from an ethical standpoint, it is completely different from euthanasia, which is always wrong, in that the intent of euthanasia is to end life and cause death.
The anguish associated with conditions that bring us to the threshold of human mortality, and the difficulty of the decision we have to make, may tempt us to step back from the patient. Yet this is where, more than anything else, we are called to show love and closeness, recognizing the limit that we all share and showing our solidarity.
Let each of us give love in his or her own way—as a father, a mother, a son, a daughter, a brother or sister, a doctor or a nurse. But give it!”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Message of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Participants in the European Regional Meeting of the World Medical Association, From the Vatican, 7 November 2017 https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/pont-messages/2017/documents/papa-francesco_20171107_messaggio-monspaglia.html
2010s, 2017

Love , Life , Death , Way

“The race of prophets is extinct. Europe is becoming set in its ways, slowly embalming itself beneath the wrappings of its borders, its factories, its law-courts and its universities. The frozen Mind cracks between the mineral staves which close upon it. The fault lies with your mouldy systems, your logic of 2 + 2 = 4. The fault lies with you, Chancellors, caught in the net of syllogisms. You manufacture engineers, magistrates, doctors, who know nothing of the true mysteries of the body or the cosmic laws of existence. False scholars blind outside this world, philosophers who pretend to reconstruct the mind. The least act of spontaneous creation is a more complex and revealing world than any metaphysics.”

Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French-Occitanian poet, playwright, actor and theatre director

Letter to the Chancellors of the European Universities. Collected Works, vol. 1, pt. 2 (1956, trans. 1968).

World , Law , Way , Universe

“Doctors! You know yourself, without the help of any doctors that your case has no foundation! I care not a straw for your Doctors! For every Doctor and Lawyer that upholds your case I could find a thousand that would find our marriage good and valid!”

Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536) first wife of Henry VIII of England (1485–1536)

Alison Weir (1991). The Six Wives of Henry VIII. ISBN 0802136834, p. 213.

Marriage , Help

“Doctors are men who prescribe medicine of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, for human beings of which they know nothing.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Les médecins administrent des médicaments dont ils savent très peu, à des malades dont ils savent moins, pour guérir des maladies dont ils ne savent rien.
This attribution to Voltaire appears in Strauss' Familiar Medical Quotations (1968), p. 394, and in publications as early as 1956 http://books.google.pt/books?id=lCtCAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Doctors+are+men+who+prescribe+medicine+of%22&dq=%22Doctors+are+men+who+prescribe+medicine+of%22&hl=pt-PT&sa=X&ei=mbnWUsvDIfTB7Aaw_YD4Dw&redir_esc=y; the quotation in French does not, however, appear to be original, and is probably a relatively modern invention, only quoted in recent (21st century) published works, which attribute it to "Voltaire" without citing any source.
Attributed

Men , Disease

“He didn’t look all right to me. “Has anyone gone for the doctor?”
“Marse Tom don’t hardly get Doc West for ague. He says all the doc knows is bleeding and blistering and purging and puking and making folks sicker than they was to start.””

Octavia E. Butler book Kindred

Source: Kindred (1979), Chapter 5, “The Storm” section 3 (p. 202).

“A doctor should never try to cure the incurable.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

“We are misunderstood, we are misrepresented, we are misreported. We are not nurses, we are not doctors, we are not teachers, we are not social workers. We are religious, we are religious, we are religious.”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

As quoted in Angelo Devananda, Daily Prayers with Mother Teresa (Fount, 1987), p. 91
1980s

Teachers

“Until now science has not sought to investigate this passive animal magnetism (by no means an isolated phenomenon), although the doctor, the anthropologist and physiologist, the jurist, the psychologist, and the moralist could cultivate an entirely new field. In fact they have made not the slightest effort to investigate its nature: rather (misled by poorly understood Bible passages and by laws based on such Bible passages—laws whose moral value stands on the same level as those against witchcraft and heresy in the Middle Ages) they have believed they should ignore or disdain it with hatred and scorn, examples of which are in scientific books.”

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825–1895) German jurist, writer and pioneer of LGBT human rights

Ulrichs in autobiographical manuscript of 1861, cited in Hubert Kennedy (1988), Ulrichs: The Life and Works of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. Pioneer of the Modern Gay Movement. Boston: Alyson. p. 44; As cited in: Kennedy (1997, 4)

Books , Age , Law , Nature

“I’ve rejoiced with you and mourned with you, what I have also seen, more than anything, is what is right with America. I see people working hard and starting businesses. I see people teaching kids and serving our country. I see engineers inventing stuff, doctors coming up with new cures. I see a younger generation full of energy and new ideas, not constrained by what is, ready to seize what ought to be.
And most of all, I see Americans of every party, every background, every faith who believe that we are stronger together — black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American; young, old; gay, straight; men, women, folks with disabilities, all pledging allegiance, under the same proud flag, to this big, bold country that we love. That's what I see. That's the America I know!”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, DNC Address (July 2016)

Love , Women , Men , People

“[To Kelly, after he's become suspicious] You haven't been playing doctors and nurses have you?”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

The Osbournes television show

“We said from the start that it was going to be important for us to be consistent in saying to people if you can have your — if you want to keep the health insurance you got, you can keep it, that you're not going to have anybody getting in between you and your doctor in your decision making. And I think that some of the provisions that got snuck in might have violated that pledge.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Meeting with House Republicans, (January 2010) http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2440324/posts
2010

People , Health , Thinking , Decision

“Now that we're 18 days before the election, Mr. Severely Conservative wants you to think he was severely kidding about everything he said over the last year. He told folks he was the ideal candidate for the Tea Party, now he's telling folks, "What? Who me?" He's forgetting what his own positions are. And he's betting that you will too. I mean, he's changing up so much and backtrackin' and sidesteppin'. We've gotta name this condition that he's going though. I think it's called Romnesia. That's what it's called. I think that's what he's goin' through. Now, I'm not a medical doctor, but I do wanna go over some of the symptoms with you, because I wanna make sure nobody else catches it.You know, if you say you're for equal pay for equal work, but you keep refusing to say whether or not you'd sign a bill that protects equal pay for equal work, you might have Romnesia.If you say women should have access to contraceptive care, but you support legislation that would let your employer deny you contraceptive care, you might have a case of Romnesia.If you say you'll protect a woman's right to choose, but you stand up in a primary debate and say that you'd be delighted to sign a law outlying — outlawing that right to choose in all cases — man, you definitely got Romnesia.Now, this extends to other issues. If you say earlier in the year, "I'm gonna give a tax cut to the top 1%", and in a debate you say, "I don't know anything about giving tax cuts to rich folks", you need to get a thermometer, take your temperature, because you've probably got Romnesia.If you say that you're a champion of the coal industry when, while you were governor, you stood in front of a coal plant and said "This plant will kill you" —[audience: Romnesia! ] that's some Romnesia.And if you come down with a case of Romnesia and you can't seem to remember the policies that are still on your website, or the promises you've made over the six years you've been running for President, here's the good news: Obamacare covers pre-existing conditions. We can fix you up.. We've got a cure. We can make you well, Virginia. This is a curable disease.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Campaign rally http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/10/19/remarks-president-campaign-event-fairfax-va, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia,
2012

Women , Disease , Law , Support

“[Gay Talese's Thy Neighbor's Wife] is for me a secretly deep history of a generation of middle-class American males, my own, which was taught by parents and athletic coaches and scoutmasters and military chaplains and quack doctors and so on to be deeply ashamed of masturbation and wet dreams.
And the hidden plea in the book is one which first appeared in my eyes when I was fourteen, say, and which has not vanished entirely to this day. It is part of the mystery of me. The plea is addressed by old-fashioned males forever full of jism to any pretty human female, on the street, in a magazine, in a movie — anywhere. The plea is this: "Please, pretty lady, don't make me play with my private parts again."”

Kurt Vonnegut book Palm Sunday

"The Sexual Revolution" (ndg)
Palm Sunday (1981)

Books , Dreams , History , Fashion

“As it is with the soldier, so it is with the civilian. To win success in the business world, to become a first-class mechanic, a successful farmer, an able lawyer or doctor, means that the man has devoted his best energy and power through long years to the achievement of his ends. So it is in the life of the family, upon which in the last analysis the whole welfare of the nation rests. The man or woman who, as bread-winner and home-maker, or as wife and mother, has done all that he or she can do, patiently and uncomplainingly, is to be honored; and is to be envied by all those who have never had the good fortune to feel the need and duty of doing such work.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, A Square Deal (1903)

Life , World , Family , Feeling

“Doctor Paul Proteus, son of a successful man, himself rich with prospects of being richer, counted his material blessings. He found that he was in excellent shape to afford integrity.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Player Piano

Source: Player Piano (1952), Chapter 13 (p. 132)

Success

“If you like the plan you have, you can keep it. If you like the doctor you have, you can keep your doctor, too.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

President's weekly address (6 June 2009) https://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/WEEKLY-ADDRESS-President-Obama-Outlines-Goals-for-Health-Care-Reform/
2009

“Greb gave me a terrible whipping. My jaw was swollen from the right temple down the cheek, along the chin and part way up the other side. The referee, the ring itself, was full of my blood. If boxing was afflicted with the commission doctors that we have now, the first fight probably would have been stopped and no one would have heard of me today.”

Harry Greb (1894–1926) American boxer

Former boxing great Gene Tunneyhttp://coxscorner.tripod.com/greb.html

Way , Affliction , Fight , Parting

“In one of the Cremona hospitals, an Italian doctor had said: "We keep the good things for our friends of the Allied Army, and give our enemies the bare necessities. If they die, so much the worse!" and he added, to excuse these barbarous words, that he had heard from some Italian soldiers who had returned from Verona and Mantua, that the Austrians allowed the wounded of the Franco-Sardinian army to die uncared for. A noble lady of Cremona, Countess…, who had heard the doctor's words and had been devoting herself to the hospitals with the utmost zeal, made haste to show her disapproval by declaring that she gave exactly the same attention to the Austrians as to the Allies, and made no difference between friends and enemies. "For, she said, "Our Lord Jesus Christ made no such distinctions between men in well doing."”

Henry Dunant book A Memory of Solferino

Source: A Memory of Solferino (1862), p. 97

Men , Christ

“Well, I'll tell you a little bit about myself, uh, my brother's a doctor and my sister's an attorney, and I hate Thanksgiving. Last year, we're sitting around the dining room table, and my brother tells a story about all the neat lives he's saved. My sister tells a story about winning a lawsuit for an orphanage to help the children. Then my mom goes, (archly) "Well, Ron? Is there anything new with your career?" And I go, "Yeah! I got a new bit about sticking my pecker in a toaster!"”

Ron White (1956) American comedian

Maybe I should've told my story first.
Blue Collar Comedy Tour Rides Again

Hate , Children , Moms , Sister

“And when girls cannot go to school and grow up not knowing how to read or write -- that denies the world future women engineers, future women doctors, future women business owners, future women presidents -- that sets us all back. That's a bad tradition -- not providing our girls the same education as our sons.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Remarks to the People of Africa (July 2015)
Context: And when girls cannot go to school and grow up not knowing how to read or write -- that denies the world future women engineers, future women doctors, future women business owners, future women presidents -- that sets us all back. That's a bad tradition -- not providing our girls the same education as our sons. I was saying in Kenya, nobody would put out a football team and then just play half the team. You’d lose. The same is true when it comes to getting everybody and education. You can't leave half the team off -- our young women.

Women , World , Education , School

“My brother got his doctorate in 1938, I think. If he had gone to work in Germany after that, he would have been helping to make Hitler's dreams come true.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Speech at MIT (1985), referring to his brother Bernard Vonnegut, and the choices available to scientists and the intelligent, to serve humanity, or to betray it, as published in Fates Worse Than Death (1991), Ch. 12
Various interviews
Context: My brother got his doctorate in 1938, I think. If he had gone to work in Germany after that, he would have been helping to make Hitler's dreams come true. If he had gone to work in Italy, he would have been helping to make Mussolini's dreams come true. If he had gone to work in Japan, he would have been helping to make Tojo's dreams come true. If he had gone to work in the Soviet Union, he would have been helping to make Stalin's dreams come true. He went to work for a bottle manufacturer in Butler, Pennsylvania, instead. It can make quite a difference not just to you but to humanity: the sort of boss you choose, whose dreams you help come true.
Hitler dreamed of killing Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, Communists, Jehovah's Witnesses, mental defectives, believers in democracy, and so on, in industrial quantities. It would have remained only a dream if it hadn't been for chemists as well educated as my brother, who supplied Hitler's executioners with the cyanide gas known as Zyklon B. It would have remained only a dream if architects and engineers as capable as my father and grandfather hadn't designed extermination camps — the fences, the towers, the barracks, the railroad sidings, and the gas chambers and crematoria — for maximum ease of operation and efficiency.

Dreams , Thinking , Help

“He died waiting for a doctor, in a building full of doctors. Nothing so dramatized for me the nature of a bureaucracy and its emphasis on procedures, rather than results.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Source: 2000s, A Personal Odyssey (2000), Ch. 5 : Halls of Ivy
Context: In the summer of 1959, as in the summer of 1957, I worked as a clerk-typist in the headquarters of the U. S. Public Health Service in Washington. The people I worked for were very nice and I grew to like them. One day, a man had a heart attack at around 5 PM, on the sidewalk outside the Public Health Service. He was taken inside to the nurse's room, where he was asked if he was a government employee. If he were, he would have been eligible to be taken to a medical facility there. Unfortunately, he was not, so a phone call was made to a local hospital to send an ambulance. By the time this ambulance made its way through miles of Washington rush-hour traffic, the man was dead. He died waiting for a doctor, in a building full of doctors. Nothing so dramatized for me the nature of a bureaucracy and its emphasis on procedures, rather than results.

Nature , Waiting

“Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

This attribution to Voltaire appears in Strauss' Familiar Medical Quotations (1968), p. 394, and in publications as early as 1956 http://books.google.pt/books?id=lCtCAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Doctors+are+men+who+prescribe+medicine+of%22&dq=%22Doctors+are+men+who+prescribe+medicine+of%22&hl=pt-PT&sa=X&ei=mbnWUsvDIfTB7Aaw_YD4Dw&redir_esc=y; the quotation in French does not, however, appear to be original, and is probably a relatively modern invention, only quoted in recent (21st century) published works, which attribute it to "Voltaire" without citing any source.
Original: (fr) Les médecins administrent des médicaments dont ils savent très peu, à des malades dont ils savent moins, pour guérir des maladies dont ils ne savent rien.

Men , Disease

“I was not a good doctor, my studies had been too rapid, my hospital training too short, but there is not the slightest doubt that I was a successful doctor. What is the secret of success? To inspire confidence. What is confidence?… I do not know, I only know that it cannot be acquired by book reading, nor by the bedside of our patients. It is a magic gift granted by birth-right to one man and denied to another. The doctor who possesses this gift can almost raise the dead.”

Axel Munthe (1857–1949) Swedish physician

Confidence , Study , Reading , Success

“Tezuka could never completely abandon medicine. Although he never actively practiced, he became a licensed doctor later in life, and one of his most famous manga series stars the rogue genius doctor, Black Jack. But life as both a doctor and an in-demand (though underpaid) young artist was difficult. Tezuka struggled to meet deadlines and commitments. His family feared for his health and begged him to focus on medicine, but he had become too successful, and too passionate, to stop.”

Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989) Japanese cartoonist and animator

About
Source: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2016/08/06/books/book-reviews/life-japans-god-manga/#.XSjK_VVKi70 "The life of Osamu Tezuka, Japan’s ‘god of manga’"

Family , Life , Success , Star

“Now, when suffering is always the first of the arguments marshalled against life, as its most questionable feature, it is salutary to remember the times when people made the opposite assessment, because they could not do without making people suffer and saw first-rate magic in it, a veritable seductive lure to life. Perhaps pain - I say this to comfort the squeamish - did not hurt as much then as it does now; at least, a doctor would be justified in assuming this, if he had treated a Negro (taken as a representative for primeval man) for serious internal inflammations which would drive the European with the stoutest constitution to distraction; - they do not do that to Negroes.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book On the Genealogy of Morality

The curve of human capacity for pain actually does seem to sink dramatically and almost precipitously beyond the first ten thousand or ten million of the cultural elite; and for myself, I do not doubt that in comparison with one night of pain endured by a single, hysterical blue stocking, the total suffering of all the animals who have been interrogated by the knife in scientific research is as nothing.
Essay 2, Section 7
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)

Hurt , Pain , Time , Question

“Welcome to politics, Doctor. We don’t get to pick our allies. The best we can hope for is that we don’t despise them quite as much as our enemies.”

Alastair Reynolds book Terminal World

Source: Terminal World (2010), Chapter 22 (p. 417)

Hope