Quotes about patient
page 4

John Harvey Kellogg photo
Michael Johns photo
Roger Ebert photo
George William Curtis photo

“Mayor Macbeth, of Charleston, told General Howard that he did not believe that a bureau at Washington could manage the social relations of the people from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. But the answer to Mayor Macbeth is that he and his companions have managed those relations at a cost to the country of four years of civil war, three thousand millions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of lives. The Freedmen's Bureau will hardly be as expensive as that. And while such a bureau merely defends the rights of a certain class under the laws, the aid societies give them that education which in the present state of local feeling would be inevitably withheld. The mighty arch of Sherman, wasting and taming the land, is followed by the noiseless steps of the band of unnamed heroes and heroines who are teaching the people. The soldier drew the furrow, the teacher drops the seed. There is many and many a devoted woman, hidden at this moment in the lowliest cabins of the South, whose name poets will not sing nor historians record, but whose patient toil the eye that marks the sparrow's fall beholds and approves. Not more noble, not more essential, was the work of the bravest and most famous of the heroes who fell in the wild storm of battle, than that of many a woman to us unknown, faithful through privation and exposure and disease, and perishing at the lonely outpost of duty in the act of helping the nation keep its word.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1860s, The Good Fight (1865)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
Stephen Baxter photo
George W. Bush photo
Thomas Edison photo

“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will instruct his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor and businessman

This has been reprinted many times with slight variations on the wording; it is part of a much larger quote directly from Edison published in 1903:
:Nineteen hundred and three will bring great advances in surgery, in the study of bacteria, in the knowledge of the cause and prevention of disease. Medicine is played out. Every new discovery of bacteria shows us all the more convincingly that we have been wrong and that the million tons of stuff we have taken was all useless.
The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will instruct his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.
They may even discover the germ of old age. I don't predict it, but it might be by the sacrifice of animal life human life could be prolonged.
Surgery, diet, antiseptics — these three are the vital things of the future in preserving the health of humanity. There were never so many able, active minds at work on the problems of diseases as now, and all their discoveries are tending to the simple truth — that you can't improve on nature.
:* As quoted in "Wizard Edison" in The Newark Advocate (2 January 1903), p. 1 according to research by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson at snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/quotes/edison.asp.
1900s

Nikos Kazantzakis photo
Marie-Louise von Franz photo
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson photo
James Braid photo
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo

“The honourable gentleman has alluded to the distresses and financial embarrassments of the country. I should be the last man to speak of those distresses in a slighting manner; but in considering the amount of our burdens, we ought not to forget under what circumstances those difficulties have been incurred. Engaged in an arduous struggle, single-handed and unaided, not only against all the powers of Europe, but with the confederated forces of the civilized world, our object was not merely military glory—not the temptation of territorial acquisition—not even what might be considered a more justifiable object, the assertion of violated rights and the vindication of national honour; but we were contending for our very existence as an independent nation. When the political horizon was thus clouded, when no human foresight could point out from what quarter relief was to be expected, when the utmost effort of national energy was not to despair, I would put to the honourable gentleman whether, if at that period it could have been shown that Europe might be delivered from its thraldom, but that this contingent must be purchased at the price of a long and patient endurance of our domestic burdens, we should not have accepted the conditions with gratitude? I lament as deeply as the honourable gentleman the burdens of the country; but it should be recollected that they were the price which we bad agreed to pay for our freedom and independence.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech in the House of Commons (16 May 1820), quoted in George Henry Francis, Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, During More Than Forty Years of Public Life (London: Colburn and Co., 1852), pp. 15-16.
1820s

William Osler photo

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

William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian pathologist, physician, educator, bibliophile, historian, author, cofounder of Johns Hopkins Hospi…

"Books and Men" in Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (1901).

William Peter Blatty photo
Jane Barker photo
Douglas Coupland photo
Marek Sanak photo
Nyanaponika Thera photo
Marcus Aurelius photo
William Morley Punshon photo
Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas photo
Helen Garner photo
Mary Midgley photo
Newton Lee photo

“It is high time we treated drug abuse and terrorism as diseases instead of wars -- curing the patients rather than killing them.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Google It: Total Information Awareness, 2016

James Braid photo
James Braid photo

“It is commonly said that seeing is believing, but feeling is the very truth. I shall, therefore, give the result of my experience of hypnotism in my own person. In the middle of September, 1844, I suffered from a most severe attack of rheumatism, implicating the left side of the neck and chest, and the left arm. At first the pain was moderately severe, and I took some medicine to remove it; but, instead of this, it became more and more violent, and had tormented me for three days, and was so excruciating, that it entirely deprived me of sleep for three nights successively, and on the last of the three nights I could not remain in any one posture for five minutes, from the severity of the pain. On the forenoon of the next day, whilst visiting my patients, every jolt of the carriage I could only compare to several sharp instruments being thrust through my shoulder, neck, and chest. A full inspiration was attended with stabbing pain, such as is experienced in pleurisy. When I returned home for dinner I could neither turn my head, lift my arm, nor draw a breath, without suffering extreme pain. In this condition I resolved to try the effects of hypnotism. I requested two friends, who were present, and who both understood the system, to watch the effects, and arouse me when I had passed sufficiently into the condition; and, with their assurance that they would give strict attention to their charge, I sat down and hypnotised myself, extending the extremities. At the expiration of nine minutes they aroused me, and, to my agreeable surprise, I was quite free from pain, being able to move in any way with perfect ease. I say agreeably surprised, on this account; I had seen like results with many patients; but it is one thing to hear of pain, and another to feel it. My suffering was so exquisite that I could not imagine anyone else ever suffered so intensely as myself on that occasion; and, therefore, I merely expected a mitigation, so that I was truly agreeably surprised to find myself quite free from pain. I continued quite easy all the afternoon, slept comfortably all night, and the following morning felt a little stiffness, but no pain. A week thereafter I had a slight return, which I removed by hypnotising myself once more; and I have remained quite free from rheumatism ever since, now nearly six years.”

James Braid (1795–1860) Scottish surgeon, hypnotist, and hypnotherapist

In “The First Account of Self-Hypnosis Quoted in “The Original Philosophy of Hypnotherapy (from The Discovery of Hypnosis)”.

Alexis De Tocqueville photo

“Commerce is naturally adverse to all the violent passions; it loves to temporize, takes delight in compromise, and studiously avoids irritation. It is patient, insinuating, flexible, and never has recourse to extreme measures until obliged by the most absolute necessity. Commerce renders men independent of each other, gives them a lofty notion of their personal importance, leads them to seek to conduct their own affairs, and teaches how to conduct them well; it therefore prepares men for freedom, but preserves them from revolutions.”

Variant translation: Trade is the natural enemy of all violent passions. Trade loves moderation, delights in compromise, and is most careful to avoid anger. It is patient, supple, and insinuating, only resorting to extreme measures in cases of absolute necessity. Trade makes men independent of one another and gives them a high idea of their personal importance: it leads them to want to manage their own affairs and teaches them to succeed therein. Hence it makes them inclined to liberty but disinclined to revolution.
Book Three, Chapter XXI.
Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Three

Matthew Good photo
William Morley Punshon photo

“Labor is the true alchemist that beats out in patient transmutation the baser metals into gold.”

William Morley Punshon (1824–1881) English Nonconformist minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 367.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Wilfred Thesiger photo
James Beattie photo

“Zealous, yet modest; innocent, though free;
Patient of toil, serene amidst alarms;
Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms.”

James Beattie (1735–1803) Scottish poet, moralist and philosopher

Book i. Stanza 11.
The Minstrel; or, The Progress of Genius (1771)

Robert Maynard Hutchins photo
Chinmayananda Saraswati photo
Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis photo
Herbert Marcuse photo
Conor Oberst photo

“So I wait for the day
when I'll hear the key
as it turns in the lock
And the guard will say to me,
"Oh my patient prisoner
you waited for this day and finally,
you are free!
You are free!
You are free!"”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

From A Balance Beam
Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)

Bob Dylan photo

“And here I sit so patiently waiting to find out what price you have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Blonde on Blonde (1966), Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again

Michel Foucault photo

“Be careful then, patients,
and don’t accept any doctor;
die for free and do not give
a single coin to medicine.”

Y así, enfermos, ojo alerta
y ningún médico admitan;
mueran de gorra sin dar
un real a la medicina.
Diente del Parnaso ('Parnassus' Tooth') (1689), 'Prólogo al que leyere este tratado’.
Quoted in Chambers Dictionary of Quotations (1997), p. 1038.

“Once I’m dead, I can afford to be patient.”

Source: Mother of Storms (1994), p. 350

John Ashcroft photo
Frederick Douglass photo
Antonin Scalia photo

“The operation was a success, but the patient died.' What such a procedure is to medicine, the Court's opinion in this case is to law.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, 524 U.S. 569 (1998) (Scalia, concurring).
1990s

“What the hell kind of conclusion can you come to there? The most important thing, from the patient's perspective, they don't talk about.”

John Bonica (1917–1994) Anesthesiologist; pioneer in pain management

After having read 14,000 pages of medical textbooks and finding only 7 1/2 pages mentioning "pain," as quoted by Latif Nasser, "The amazing story of the man who gave us modern pain relief" (2015) TED Talks

Sarada Devi photo

“One suffers as a result of one's own actions. So, instead of blaming others for such sufferings, one should pray to the Lord and depending entirely on His grace, try to bear them patiently and with forbearance under all circumstances.”

Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna

[Swami Saradeshananda, The Holy Mother's Reminiscences, Vedanta Kesari, 1976-1981]

Sri Aurobindo photo

“The ascent of man into heaven is not the key, but rather his ascent here into the spirit and the descent also of the Spirit into his normal humanity and the transformation of this earthly nature. For that and not some post mortem salvation is the real new birth for which humanity waits as the crowning movement of its long obscure and painful course…. Therefore the individuals who will most help the future of humanity in the new age will be those who will recognise a spiritual evolution as the destiny and therefore the great need of the human being…. They will especially not make the mistake of thinking that this change can be effected by machinery and outward institutions; they will know and never forget that it has to be lived out by each man inwardly or it can never be made a reality for the kind…. Failures must be originally numerous in everything great and difficult, but the time comes when the experience of past failures can be profitably used and the gate that so long resisted opens. In this as in all great human aspirations and endeavours, an a priori declaration of impossibility is a sign of ignorance and weakness, and the motto of the aspirant's endeavour must be the solvitur ambulando of the discoverer. For by the doing the difficulty will be solved. A true beginning has to be made; the rest is a work for Time in its sudden achievements or its long patient labour….”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

July, 1918
India's Rebirth

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor photo
Frances Farmer photo

“If a person is treated like a patient, they are apt to act like one.”

Frances Farmer (1913–1970) American actress

This Is Your Life television show

George W. Bush photo
Swami Vivekananda photo
Nelson Mandela photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Albrecht Thaer photo
Agatha Christie photo
Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“And now that I have allowed myself the jest to which in this two-sided life hardly any page can be too serious to grant a place, I part with the book with deep seriousness, in the sure hope that sooner or later it will reach those to whom alone it can be addressed; and for the rest, patiently resigned that the same fate should, in full measure, befall it, that in all ages has, to some extent, befallen all knowledge, and especially the weightiest knowledge of the truth, to which only a brief triumph is allotted between the two long periods in which it is condemned as paradoxical or disparaged as trivial. The former fate is also wont to befall its author. But life is short, and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth.”

:s:The World as Will and Representation/Preface to the First Edition, last paragraph.
Mostly quoted rather incorrectly as: All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Und so, nachdem ich mir den Scherz erlaubt, dem eine Stelle zu gönnen, in diesem durchweg zweideutigen Leben kaum irgend ein Blatt zu ernsthaft seyn kann, gebe ich mit innigem Ernst das Buch hin, in der Zuversicht, daß es früh oder spät diejenigen erreichen wird, an welche es allein gerichtet seyn kann, und übrigens gelassen darin ergeben, daß auch ihm in vollem Maaße das Schicksal werde, welches in jeder Erkenntniß, also um so mehr in der wichtigsten, allezeit der Wahrheit zu Theil ward, der nur ein kurzes Siegesfest beschieden ist, zwischen den beiden langen Zeiträumen, wo sie als paradox verdammt und als trivial geringgeschätzt wird. Auch pflegt das erstere Schicksal ihren Urheber mitzutreffen.— Aber das Leben ist kurz und die Wahrheit wirkt ferne und lebt lange: sagen wir die Wahrheit.
Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. Leipzig 1819. Vorrede. p.XVI books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=0HsPAAAAQAAJ&pg=PR16
The World as Will and Representation (1819; 1844; 1859)

Robert A. Heinlein photo
George Gordon Byron photo

“And if we do but watch the hour,
There never yet was human power
Which could evade, if unforgiven,
The patient search and vigil long
Of him who treasures up a wrong.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Mazeppa (1819), stanza 10.

Francis Galton photo
Muammar Gaddafi photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Felix Adler photo
John Holt (Lord Chief Justice) photo
Edmund Spenser photo
William Osler photo

“A physician who treats himself has a fool for a patient.”

William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian pathologist, physician, educator, bibliophile, historian, author, cofounder of Johns Hopkins Hospi…

Source: Sir William Osler : Aphorisms (1961), Ch. 1.

Marek Sanak photo

“The more times your cells divide, the greater the chance of mutations that lead to cancer. That is why the average oncological patient is a mature person or even a senior.”

Marek Sanak (1958) Polish scientist

Mazurek, Maria (13 May 2016): Komórki rakowe to anarchizujące potwory https://gazetakrakowska.pl/komorki-rakowe-to-anarchizujace-potwory/ar/9985395. Gazeta Krakowska (in Polish), pp. 18–19.

John Scalzi photo

“When power is within reach, few will wait patiently for it.”

Source: The Ghost Brigades (2006), Chapter 7 (p. 169)

John Adams photo
Albrecht Thaer photo
Peter Hitchens photo
Coventry Patmore photo

“Having my law the seventh time disobey'd,
I struck him, and dismiss'd
With hard words and unkiss'd,
—His Mother, who was patient, being dead.”

Coventry Patmore (1823–1896) English poet

The Toys, p. 50.
The Unknown Eros and Other Poems (1877)

“I make them for the worst of the patients, the ones on chemotherapy and the ones totally wasting away. I pick out the worst of the worst and turn them on.”

Brownie Mary (1922–1999) American medical cannabis activist

Associated Press. (1992, July 24). "'Brownie Mary' busted for treats marijuana-laced goodies relieve AIDS patients' pain, she says after release". San Jose Mercury News, p. 3B.

Neal Stephenson photo
John Bright photo
Joseph Joubert photo
Angela Davis photo
Kenneth Grahame photo
Jerome David Salinger photo
John Boyle O'Reilly photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Jorge Luis Borges photo

“A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face.”

Un hombre se propone la tarea de dibujar el mundo. A lo largo de los años puebla un espacio con imágenes de provincias, de reinos, de montañas, de bahías, de naves, de islas, de peces, de habitaciones, de instrumentos, de astros, de caballos y de personas. Poco antes de morir, descubre que ese paciente laberinto de líneas traza la imagen de su cara.
Epilogue
Variant translation: A man sets himself the task of portraying the world. Through the years he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and people. Shortly before his death, he discovers that that patient labyrinth of lines traces the image of his face.
Dreamtigers (1960)

Shripad Yasso Naik photo

“Some ayurveda practitioners have told me that doctors prescribing allopathy medicines often advise patients not to opt for ayurveda. Such doctors are anti-nationals.”

Shripad Yasso Naik (1952) Indian politician

On doctors who ask patients to avoid Ayurveda, as quoted in " Doctors prescribing non-ayurvedic medicines are anti-national http://m.timesofindia.com/city/kolhapur/Doctors-prescribing-non-ayurvedic-medicines-are-anti-national/articleshow/52058067.cms", The Times of India (30 April 2016)

André Maurois photo