Quotes about illness
page 13

John Stuart Mill photo
Arthur C. Clarke photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Isoroku Yamamoto photo
Teal Swan photo
Will Durant photo

“To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves; let us be above such transparent egotism. If you can't say good and encouraging things, say nothing. Nothing is often a good thing to do, and always a clever thing to say.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

We Have a Right To Be Happy Today https://web.archive.org/web/20130106111821/http://www.willdurant.com/youth.htm, commencement address at the Webb School of Claremont, California (7 June 1958)

Trevor Loudon photo

“Socialism, is in short a manifestation of mental illness or major character deficiency.”

Trevor Loudon New Zealand politician

"Are Socialists Psychos?" https://www.trevorloudon.com/2006/12/are-socialists-psychos/

Lynn Compton photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo

“And it is the body's hysterical overreaction to a virus, rather than the virus itself, that makes us ill.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Three, Brains Changing, Minds Changing

Marilyn Ferguson photo

“The business of the Aquarian Conspiracy is calm diagnosis of that illness—to make it clear that synthesis is needed—paradigm change rather than pendulum change.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Nine, Flying and Seeing: New Ways to Learn

Marilyn Ferguson photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“My administration has taken the most aggressive action in modern history to prevent the spread of this illness in the United States. We are ready. We are ready. Totally ready. On January 31st, I ordered the suspension of foreign nationals who have recently been in China from entering the United States. An action which the Democrats loudly criticized and protested and now everybody’s complimenting me saying, “Thank you very much. You were 100% correct.””

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Could’ve been a whole different story. But I say, so let’s get this right. A virus starts in China, bleeds its way into various countries all around the world, doesn’t spread widely at all in the United States because of the early actions that myself and my administration took against a lot of other wishes, and the Democrats’ single talking point, and you see it, is that it’s Donald Trump’s fault, right? It’s Donald Trump’s fault. No, just things that happened.
2020s, 2020, February, Donald Trump Charleston, South Carolina Rally (February 28, 2020)

“This (COVID-19) virus is different from SARS-CoV, which caused severe illness in most infected patients. It appears that many patients have relatively mild illness. These relatively mild cases may recover after one week or so.”

Hitoshi Oshitani (1959) Japanese physician

Hitoshi Oshitani (2020) cited in " China’s health officials say priority is to stop mild coronavirus cases from getting worse https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3048993/chinese-officials-say-priority-stop-mild-coronavirus-cases" on South China Morning Post, 4 February 2020.

Joseph Addison photo

“Between 1939 and 1945 the Nazis systematically murdered as many as 200,000 mentally ill or physically disabled people whom they stigmatised as 'life unworthy of life.'”

Michael Burleigh (1955) American historian and writer

This covert and complex series of operations was known as the ‘euthanasia programme.’

Death and Deliverance 'Euthanasia' in Germany, c.1900 to 1945,Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. i

Prince photo
Esmé Weijun Wang photo

“I do want to be careful not to glamorise mental illness when it comes to creativity because more often than not it actually tends to inhibit creativity…”

Esmé Weijun Wang American writer

On avoiding perpetuating stereotypes about mental illness in “Esmé Weijun Wang: ‘I don’t want to glamorise mental illness… it inhibits creativity’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/29/esme-weijun-wang-interview-the-collected-schizophrenias in The Guardian (2019 Jun29)

Plutarch photo
Ibn Hazm photo
Ibn Hazm photo
Mark Manson photo
Edmund Burke photo
John Herschel photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo
Susan Sontag photo

“Everyone less mentally ill than me is Privileged, everyone more mentally ill than me is Toxic, everyone equally mentally ill to me is Cool,”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/1333817949623263232]
Tweets by year, 2020

“i deserve the most mentally ill president imaginable. 99 year old babbling doofus. Send us into the volcano sir”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/1235108800744411137]
Tweets by year, 2020

James Thomson (B.V.) photo
James Thomson (B.V.) photo
Edouard Manet photo

“Christ on the cross – what a symbol. A symbol of love surpassed by sorrow, which lies at the root of human condition, the main symbol of human poetry.. ..but that's enough of that, I'm getting morbid. It's Siredey's fault [his doctor during his last years, when Manet was seriously ill: syphilis]. Doctors always remind me of undertakers. Though I must say, I feel a lot better this evening.”

Edouard Manet (1832–1883) French painter

quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe; Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 232
1880s
while working on Antonin Proust's portrait https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PeinturesMus%C3%A9eFabre089-Manet.jpg in 1881-82

J. Howard Moore photo
Larry Niven photo
John Heywood photo

“Ill weede growth fast.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Part I, chapter 10.
Proverbs (1546), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Howard Pyle photo
H.L. Mencken photo

“My belief is that every man after fifty-five is always ill more or less.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Source: Mencken: A Life by Fred Hobson (1994), Chapter 18, Looking Two Ways (p. 426)

Zhiar Ali photo

“Gay people should be protected by law and not discriminated against, [homosexuality] is a natural human desire, not an illness.”

Zhiar Ali (1999) Kurdish human rights activist and artist

Ali on discrimination against gay people in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Source: [هاوڕەگەزخوازیی لە كوردستان؛ حەزێكی سروشتیی بێ پشت و پەنا, http://www.peregraf.com/ku/report/2186/هاوڕەگەزخوازیی-لە-كوردستان؛-حەزێكی-سروشتیی-بێ-پشت-و-پەنا, پەرەگراف, May 10, 2021, ku]

Osamu Tezuka photo

“I wish that all the ills of society - conformism, laziness, indolence, betrayal, violence, lust, rape - and especially the evils of politics will be represented in the form of an absolute depravity.”

From the Afterword to April 1978 MW , vol. 3, translation by Francesco Nicodemus, Hazard Editions, Milan, 2005, p. 193. ISBN 887502037X

Menotti Lerro photo

“Wherever will the promised light be? Is there a paradise among the clouds maybe, rest in the wind, refreshment on the seabed? Where does the dark, the insomnia, the madness, the crying, the illness, the death finish? Where does God hide himself?”

Menotti Lerro (1980) Italian poet

Dove sarà mai la luce promessa? C’è forse un paradiso tra le nuvole, riposo nel vento, ristoro nei fondali marini? Dove finisce il buio, l’insonnia, la pazzia, il pianto, la malattia, la morte? Dove si nasconde Dio?
FROM: Andrew Mangham, The Poetry of Menotti Lerro, Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011, pp. 71-72. ISBN 978-1443828444

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo
Benjamin Creme photo
Marcus Aurelius photo

“Self-control and resistance to distractions. Optimism in adversity—especially illness.”

Hays translation
I, 15
Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book I

José Hermano Saraiva photo

“He who doesn't prize his past, ill-prepares his future.”

José Hermano Saraiva (1919–2012) Historian, Jurist, Politician

Original: (pt) Quem mal-preza o seu passado, mal-prepara o seu futuro.
Source: "A Alma e a Gente - Os Lusitanos", 24 Jan 2010

Benjamin Creme photo

“Some of us in those days thought that we had actually identified a disease, which this clearly is not
To make people ill, to give them an illness, was the wrong thing
The fundamental problem is that the improvement that you see, which is not really great in clinical trials, is not maintained”

Frederick Wolfe (1936) researcher ORCID ID = 0000-0002-2801-6413

Source: "Drug Approved. Is Disease Real?" https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/health/14pain.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0, New York Times (14 January 2008)

Charles Bukowski photo

“the words have come and gone,
I sit ill.
the phone rings, the cats sleep.
Linda vacuums.
I am waiting to live,
waiting to die.
I wish I could ring in some bravery.
it's a lousy fix”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories (1996), Lines from "So now?" - p.402 (circa 1994. He died in March 1994, aged 73.)

Joe Biden photo

“We are looking at a winter of severe illness and death for the unvaccinated.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2021, December 2021
Source: ' Omicron delivers another uncertain holiday season to pandemic-weary Americans https://www.investing.com/news/coronavirus/omicron-delivers-another-uncertain-holiday-season-to-pandemicweary-americans-2714453 (Dec 17, 2021 01:21AM ET)

Philip Davis photo

“I am going to tell it to you straight because Omicron is so contagious, we could be entering the worst phase of the pandemic. We must do whatever we can to reduce the total number of infections. We want as a few as those infections to cause serious illness as possible.”

Philip Davis (1951) Bahamian politician

Source: Philip Davis (2021) cited in: " NEW RULES: PM urges caution as omicron variant likely in country https://ewnews.com/new-rules-pm-urges-caution-as-omicron-variant-likely-in-country" in Eyewitness News, 24 December 2021.

Lou Leon Guerrero photo

“We know that community testing helps us quickly identify new COVID cases, so we can isolate the virus. Please get tested. We know that vaccines and boosters are effective at preventing severe illness, hospitalizations and death. Please, go get vaccinated and go get boosted.”

Lou Leon Guerrero (1950) Guamanian politician

Source: Lou Leon Guerrero (2022) cited in: " Governor: 'I am not announcing any new restrictions at this time' https://www.guampdn.com/news/governor-i-am-not-announcing-any-new-restrictions-at-this-time/article_87485994-72b9-11ec-a0b6-271bc150ad80.html" in Pacific Daily News, 11 January 2022.

Tara Westover photo
Philip Arnold Subira Anyolo photo

“From the Christian point of view, we have an obligation to inform our people that God heals. But at the same time, He heals us through our understanding that we can protect ourselves from such illnesses.”

Philip Arnold Subira Anyolo (1956) Kenyan Roman Catholic archbishop

Bishops in Africa Call for Appropriate Measures as Cases of COVID-19 are Confirmed https://www.aciafrica.org/news/925/bishops-in-africa-call-for-appropriate-measures-as-cases-of-covid-19-are-confirmed (5 March 2020)

Alastair Reynolds photo

“Imagine a permanent, shivering gloom, and never a moment without hunger, thirst and exhaustion. Imagine the constant fear of suffering illness or injury.”

Alastair Reynolds (1966) British novelist and astronomer

“You’ve just described nine-tenths of human history.”
Open and Shut (p. 265)
Short fiction, Belladonna Nights and Other Stories (2021)

Thomas Jefferson photo
Euripidés photo

“Let me tell you, if anyone in the past has spoken
ill of women, or speaks so now or will speak so
in the future, I’ll sum it up for him: Neither sea
nor land has ever produced a more monstrous
creature than woman.”

Hecuba, lines 1178-1182 ( tr. Jay Kardan and Laura-Gray Street (2010) http://didaskalia.net/issues/8/32/)
Variant ( tr. E. P. Coleridge (1938) http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0006.tlg007.perseus-eng1:1145-1186):
[I]f any of the men of former times have spoken ill of women, if any does so now, or shall do so hereafter, I will say all this in one short sentence; for neither land or sea produces such a race, as whoever has had to do with them knows.

John the Merciful photo
Ayaan Hirsi Ali photo

“I too was ill prepared for the West. The only difference between my relatives and me is that I opened my mind.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali (1969) Dutch feminist, author

Source: 2010s, Nomad: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations (2010), Chapter 6, “My Cousins” (p. 81)

Teal Swan photo