Quotes about sick
page 2

“The Atonement of Jesus Christ and the healing it offers do much more than provide the opportunity for repentance from sins. The Atonement also gives us the strength to endure 'pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind,' because our Savior also took upon Him 'the pains and the sicknesses of his people' (Alma 7:11). Brothers and sisters, if your faith and prayers and the power of the priesthood do not heal you from an affliction, the power of the Atonement will surely give you the strength to bear the burden.”

Dallin H. Oaks (1932) Apostle of the LDs Church

He Heals the Heavy Laden https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2006/10/he-heals-the-heavy-laden, Dallin H. Oaks, October 2006

Pain, People, Faith, Sister

“The erotic instinct is something questionable, and will always be so whatever a future set of laws may have to say on the matter. It belongs, on the one hand, to the original animal nature of man, which will exist as long as man has an animal body. On the other hand, it is connected with the highest forms of the spirit. But it blooms only when the spirit and instinct are in true harmony. If one or the other aspect is missing, then an injury occurs, or at least there is a one-sided lack of balance which easily slips into the pathological. Too much of the animal disfigures the civilized human being, too much culture makes a sick animal.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

The Psychology of the Unconscious (1943)

Law, Question, Nature, Future

“That it must have been hunger alone, which first drove man to slay the animals and feed upon their flesh and blood; and that this compulsion was no mere consequence of his removal into colder climes … is proved by the patent fact that great nations with ample supplies of grain suffer nothing in strength or endurance even in colder regions through an almost exclusively vegetable diet, as is shewn by the eminent length of life of Russian peasants; while the Japanese, who know no other food than vegetables, are further renowned for their warlike valour and keenness of intellect. We may therefore call it quite an abnormality when hunger bred the thirst for blood … that thirst which history teaches us can never more be slaked, and fills its victims with a raging madness, not with courage. One can only account for it all by the human beast of prey having made itself monarch of the peaceful world, just as the ravening wild beast usurped dominion of the woods … And little as the savage animals have prospered, we see the sovereign human beast of prey decaying too. Owing to a nutriment against his nature, he falls sick with maladies that claim but him, attains no more his natural span of life or gentle death, but, plagued by pains and cares of body and soul unknown to any other species, he shuffles through an empty life to its ever fearful cutting short.”

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) German composer, conductor

Part III
Religion and Art (1880)

Life, Death, Hunger, Pain

“For if vicious propensity is, as it were, a disease of the soul like bodily sickness, even as we account the sick in body by no means deserving of hate, but rather of pity, so, and much more, should they be pitied whose minds are assailed by wickedness, which is more frightful than any sickness.”
Nam si uti corporum languor ita vitiositas quidam est quasi morbus animorum, cum aegros corpore minime dignos odio sed potius miseratione iudicemus, multo magis non insequendi sed miserandi sunt quorum mentes omni languore atrocior urguet improbitas.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480) philosopher of the early 6th century

Prose IV; line 42; translation by H. R. James
Alternate translation:
For as faintness is a disease of the body, so is vice a sickness of the mind. Wherefore, since we judge those that have corporal infirmities to be rather worthy of compassion than of hatred, much more are they to be pitied, and not abhorred, whose minds are oppressed with wickedness, the greatest malady that may be.
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book IV

Hate, Disease, Soul

“I am a Christian, and I am a devout Christian. I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe that that faith gives me a path to be cleansed of sin and have eternal life. But most importantly, I believe in the example that Jesus set by feeding the hungry and healing the sick and always prioritizing the least of these over the powerful. I didn't 'fall out in church' as they say, but there was a very strong awakening in me of the importance of these issues in my life. I didn't want to walk alone on this journey. Accepting Jesus Christ in my life has been a powerful guide for my conduct and my values and my ideals..”

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

"Q & A : Barack Obama" http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/januaryweb-only/104-32.0.html?start=1 Interview in Christianity Today (22 January 2008) <br class="br">2008

Life, Death, Faith, Strong

“Those who do not speak the words of God with humility must be advised that when they apply medicine to the sick, they must first inspect the poison of their own infection, or else by attempting to heal others, they kill themselves.”

Pope Gregory I (540–604) Pope from 590 to 604

Source: The Book of Pastoral Rule, p.159

God

“I know there are some people in Germany who become sick when they see these black uniforms, we understand the reason for this, and do not expect we shall be loved by all that number of people; those who come to fear us in any way or at any time must have a bad conscience towards the Fuhrer and the nation. For these persons we have established an organisation called the Security Service.”

Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) Nazi officer, Commander of the SS

From his treatise The Security Squadron as an Anti-Bolshevik Battle Organisation, 1936
1930s

Love, People, Fear, Way

“Are we surprised if a sick man cannot walk, or keep awake, or stand upright? Would it not be more surprising if he was the same man as when he was well? If we have a headache, or have slept badly, we are excused for telling incapable of work, and yet no one suspects us of always being lazy. Shall we deny a dying man the privilege we grant a man with a headache? And dare we assert that the man who lacks courage in his last agony never possessed virtue when he was well.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 172.

Courage

“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 <br class="br">2010s, 2017

Love, Life, Death, Way

“There is no such thing as a lazy person; he is either sick or uninspired.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

See You at the Top (2000)

Personality

“When I got home I mixed a stiff one and stood by the open window in the living room and sipped it and listened to the groundswell of traffic on Laurel Canyon Boulevard and looked at the glare of the big angry city hanging over the shoulder of the hills through which the boulevard had been cut. Far off the banshee wail of police or fire sirens rose and fell, never for very long completely silent. Twenty four hours a day somebody is running, somebody else is trying to catch him. Out there in the night of a thousand crimes, people were dying, being maimed, cut by flying glass, crushed against steering wheels or under heavy tires. People were being beaten, robbed, strangled, raped, and murdered. People were hungry, sick; bored, desperate with loneliness or remorse or fear, angry, cruel, feverish, shaken by sobs. A city no worse than others, a city rich and vigorous and full of pride, a city lost and beaten and full of emptiness. It all depends on where you sit and what your own private score is. I didn't have one. I didn't care. I finished the drink and went to bed.”

Raymond Chandler book The Long Goodbye

The Long Goodbye (1954)

People, Fear, Home, Drink

“So sick, I'm looking pale. Well, that's my pigment.”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Berzerk"
2010s, The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (2013)

“Unhappiness makes people vulnerable, incessant suffering unjust. Just as in the relations between a creditor and a debtor there is always an element of the disagreeable that can never be overcome, for the very reason that the one is irrevocably committed to the role of giver and the other to that of receiver, so in a sick person a latent feeling of resentment at every obvious sign of consideration is always ready to burst forth.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

People, Feeling, Suffering, Personality

“Is it not clear that with all this we are bound to feel ill at ease in an age that likes to claim the distinction of being the most humane, the mildest, and the most righteous age that the sun has ever seen? It is bad enough that precisely when we hear these beautiful words we have the ugliest suspicions. What we find in them is merely an expression — and a masquerade — of a profound weakening, of weariness, of old age, of declining energies. What can it matter to us what tinsel the sick may use to cover up their weakness? Let them parade it as their virtue; after all, there is no doubt that weakness makes one mild, oh so mild, so righteous, so inoffensive, so "humane!"”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Sec. 377
The Gay Science (1882)

Age, Beauty, Feeling, Sun

“Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease? He contaminates everything he touches - he has made music sick.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Case of Wagner

Der Fall Wagner (1888)

Disease, Music

“I solemnly vow that I will safeguard and hold dear and deep in my heart our union and you…I promise to love you faithfully, forsaking all others, through the good times and the bad, in sickness and health, regardless of where life takes us. I will protect you, trust you, and respect you. I will share your joys and sorrows and comfort you in times of need. I promise to cherish you and uphold your hopes and dreams and keep you safe at my side. All that is mine is now yours. I give you my hand, my heart, and my love from this moment on for as long as we both shall live.”

E. L. James book Fifty Shades Freed

Anastasia Steele, Chapter 4, p. 74.
Fifty Shades Freed (2011)

Love, Life, Health, Dreams

“You were sick, but now you're well, and there's work to do.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Timequake

Kilgore's Creed
Timequake (1997)

“Enjoin him to play so many hours every day, and look that he do it; and you shall see he will quickly be sick of it; and willing to leave it. By this means making the recreations you dislike a business to him, he will of himself with delight betake himself to those things you would have him do, especially if they be proposed as rewards for having performed the task in that play which is commanded of him.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 129
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Business

“I've been dreaming of a time when
The English are sick to death of Labour and Tories
And spit upon the name Oliver Cromwell and denounce this royal line that still salutes him
And will salute him forever.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

from the 2004 song "Irish Blood, English Heart"
From songs

Death, Dreams, Time

“The face of "evil" is always the face of total need. A dope fiend is a man in total need of dope. Beyond a certain frequency need knows absolutely no limit or control. In the words of total need: "Wouldn't you?" Yes you would. You would lie, cheat, inform on your friends, steal, do anything to satisfy total need. Because you would be in a state of total sickness, total possession, and not in a position to act in any other way. Dope fiends are sick people who cannot act other than they do. A rabid dog cannot choose but bite.”

William S. Burroughs book Naked Lunch

Introduction
Naked Lunch (1959)

People, Lie, Dogs, Way

“When she [Philosophy] saw that the Muses of poetry were present by my couch giving words to my lamenting, she was stirred a while; her eyes flashed fiercely, and said she, "Who has suffered these seducing mummers to approach this sick man? Never do they support those in sorrow by any healing remedies, but rather do ever foster the sorrow by poisonous sweets. These are they who stifle the fruit-bearing harvest of reason with the barren briars of the passions: they free not the minds of men from disease, but accustom them thereto."”
Quae ubi poeticas Musas uidit nostro assistentes toro fletibusque meis uerba dictantes, commota paulisper ac toruis inflammata luminibus: Quis, inquit, has scenicas meretriculas ad hunc aegrum permisit accedere, quae dolores eius non modo nullis remediis fouerent, uerum dulcibus insuper alerent uenenis? Hae sunt enim quae infructuosis affectuum spinis uberem fructibus rationis segetem necant hominumque mentes assuefaciunt morbo, non liberant.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480) philosopher of the early 6th century

Prose I, lines 7-9; translation by W.V. Cooper
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book I

Men, Disease, Support, Suffering

“The power which a man's imagination has over his body to heal it or make it sick is a force which none of us is born without. The first man had it, the last one will possess it. If left to himself, a man is most likely to use only the mischievous half of the force—the half which invents imaginary ailments for him and cultivates them; and if he is one of these—very wise people, he is quite likely to scoff at the beneficent half of the force and deny its existence. And so, to heal or help that man, two imaginations are required: his own and some outsider's. The outsider, B, must imagine that his incantations are the healing-power that is curing A, and A must imagine that this is so. I think it is not so, at all; but no matter, the cure is effected, and that is the main thing. The outsider's work is unquestionably valuable; so valuable that it may fairly be likened to the essential work performed by the engineer when he handles the throttle and turns on the steam; the actual power is lodged exclusively in the engine, but if the engine were left alone it would never start of itself. Whether the engineer be named Jim, or Bob, or Tom, it is all one—his services are necessary, and he is entitled to such wage as he can get you to pay. Whether he be named Christian Scientist, or Mental Scientist, or Mind Curist, or King's-Evil Expert, or Hypnotist, it is all one; he is merely the Engineer; he simply turns on the same old steam and the engine does the whole work.”

Mark Twain Christian Science

Book I, Ch. 8 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3187/3187-h/3187-h.htm#link2HCH0008 <br class="br">Christian Science (1907)

People, Imagination, Thinking, Evil

“The murderer smiles palely in wine,
Death's horror grips the sick.
Excoriated and naked, the nun prays
Before the Savior's agony on the cross.

The mother sings quietly in sleep.
Peacefully the child looks into the night
With eyes that are completely truthful.
In the whorehouse laughter rings.

By candlelight down in the cellar hole
The dead one paints with white hand
A grinning silence on the wall.
The sleeper whispers still.”

Georg Trakl (1887–1914) austrian poet

"Romance in the Night"

Death, Truth, Smile, Laughter

“If you think you are emancipated, you might consider the idea of tasting your own menstrual blood - if it makes you sick, you've got a long way to go, baby.”

Germaine Greer book The Female Eunuch

The Wicked Womb (p. 57)
The Female Eunuch (1970)

Way, Idea, Thinking, Baby

“When men's hearts are melted under the preaching of the word, or by sickness, or the loss of friends, believers should be very eager to stamp the truth upon the prepared mind. Such opportunities are to be seized with holy eagerness.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 129.

Men, Truth, Loss, Heart

“They are splendidly built [Italian Hospitals], the best food and drink are at hand, the attendants are very diligent, the physicians are learned, the beds and coverings are very clean, and the bedsteads are painted. As soon as a sick man is brought in, all his clothes are taken off in the presence of a notary and are faithfully kept for him. He is then laid in a handsomely painted bed with clean sheets. Two physicians are fetched at once. Attendants come with food and drink, served in immaculate glass vessels; these are not touched with as much as a finger but are brought on a tray.”

Martin Luther book Table Talk

3930
Table Talk (1569)

Food, Drink, Learning, Painting

“The field Negro was beaten from morning to night; he lived in a shack, in a hut; he wore old, castoff clothes. He hated his master. I say he hated his master. He was intelligent. That house Negro loved his master, but that field Negro — remember, they were in the majority, and they hated the master. When the house caught on fire, he didn't try to put it out; that field Negro prayed for a wind, for a breeze. When the master got sick, the field Negro prayed that he'd die. If someone came to the field Negro and said, "Let's separate, let's run," he didn't say, "Where we going?"”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

He'd say, "Any place is better than here."
Speech (9 November 1963). p. 11.
Malcolm X Speaks (1965)

Love, Hate, Intelligence, Housing

“Some of the loudest, most proudly ignorant guessing in the world is going on in Washington today. Our leaders are sick of all the solid information that has been dumped on humanity by research and scholarship and investigative reporting. They think that the whole country is sick of it, and they could be right. It isn't the gold standard that they want to put us back on. They want something even more basic. They want to put us back on the snake-oil standard.”

Kurt Vonnegut book A Man Without a Country

A Man Without a Country (2005)

World, Thinking, Country

“Inevitably, in the secret chemistry of the emotions the feeling of pity for a sick person is imperceptibly bound up with tenderness.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

Secret, Feeling, Personality

““Why are you quitting?”
“Sick of my job.”
“Because what you were doing was morally bad?” suggested the voice.
“Because it wasn’t getting anybody anywhere. Because it was getting everybody nowhere.”
“Because it was evil?” insisted the voice.
“Because it was pointless.””

Kurt Vonnegut book Player Piano

Source: Player Piano (1952), Chapter 29 (p. 271)

Evil

“At the core, eating other creatures doesn't appeal to me. … Finally after seeing Forks Over Knives, I decided it was time to cut out all dairy and eggs as well. Being a decade long vegetarian at the time, the transition was much easier. … I also hope to use my platform to educate and transform people's perceptions on plant based diets, what plant based athletes look like, and can achieve, and to just encourage everyone, no matter what your lifestyle is, to be more mindful of the choices we have when it comes to diet and the impact those choices have on ourselves, our culture, and the environment. … I just encourage everyone, especially parents and kids, to really get educated on the corporate food system currently in place. It's causing an epidemic of sick people. Take the power back, and put the nourishment of your body, mind, and soul back into your own hands. Every little step you make to eliminate animal products in your meals is a one step closer to the big leap we all could benefit from taking.”

Austin Aries (1978) professional wrestler

" Austin Aries, vegan wrestler http://www.greatveganathletes.com/austin-aries-vegan-wrestler" by Cris Iles-Wright. Interview for greatveganathletes.com, 2014.

People, Education, Food, Hope

“When you reached the age of reason, I secured you from the influence of human prejudice; when your heart awoke I preserved you from the sway of passion. Had I been able to prolong this inner tranquillity till your life's end, my work would have been secure, and you would have been as happy as man can be; but, my dear Emile, in vain did I dip you in the waters of Styx, I could not make you everywhere invulnerable; a fresh enemy has appeared, whom you have not yet learnt to conquer, and from whom I cannot save you. That enemy is yourself. Nature and fortune had left you free. You could face poverty, you could bear bodily pain; the sufferings of the heart were unknown to you; you were then dependent on nothing but your position as a human being; now you depend on all the ties you have formed for yourself; you have learnt to desire, and you are now the slave of your desires. Without any change in yourself, without any insult, any injury to yourself, what sorrows may attack your soul, what pains may you suffer without sickness, how many deaths may you die and yet live! A lie, an error, a suspicion, may plunge you in despair.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau book Emile, or On Education

Emile, or On Education (1762), Book V

Life, Death, Pain, Happiness

“The sick are the greatest danger for the healthy; it is not from the strongest that harm comes to the strong, but from the weakest.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book On the Genealogy of Morality

Essay 3, Aphorism 14
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)

Strong

“In the coming days, we’ll learn about the victims — young men and women who were studying and learning and working hard, their eyes set on the future, their dreams on what they could make of their lives. And America will wrap everyone who’s grieving with our prayers and our love.
But as I said just a few months ago, and I said a few months before that, and I said each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough. It’s not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel. And it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America — next week, or a couple of months from now.
We don’t yet know why this individual did what he did. And it’s fair to say that anybody who does this has a sickness in their minds, regardless of what they think their motivations may be. But we are not the only country on Earth that has people with mental illnesses or want to do harm to other people. We are the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months.
Earlier this year, I answered a question in an interview by saying, “The United States of America is the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense gun-safety laws — even in the face of repeated mass killings.” And later that day, there was a mass shooting at a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana. That day! Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it. We’ve become numb to this.
We talked about this after Columbine and Blacksburg, after Tucson, after Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, after Aurora, after Charleston. It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun.
And what’s become routine, of course, is the response of those who oppose any kind of common-sense gun legislation.”

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

2015, Remarks after the Umpqua Community College shooting (October 2015)

Love, Women, Men, People

“There are two fundamentally different ways for the strong to bend down to the weak, for the rich to help the poor, for the more perfect life to help the “less perfect.” This action can be motivated by a powerful feeling of security, strength, and inner salvation, of the invincible fullness of one’s own life and existence. All this unites into the clear awareness that one is rich enough to share one’s being and possessions. Love, sacrifice, help, the descent to the small and the weak, here spring from a spontaneous overflow of force, accompanied by bliss and deep inner calm. Compared to this natural readiness for love and sacrifice, all specific “egoism,” the concern for oneself and one’s interest, and even the instinct of “self-preservation” are signs of a blocked and weakened life. Life is essentially expansion, development, growth in plenitude, and not “self-preservation,” as a false doctrine has it. Development, expansion, and growth are not epiphenomena of mere preservative forces and cannot be reduced to the preservation of the “better adapted.” … There is a form of sacrifice which is a free renunciation of one’s own vital abundance, a beautiful and natural overflow of one’s forces. Every living being has a natural instinct of sympathy for other living beings, which increases with their proximity and similarity to himself. Thus we sacrifice ourselves for beings with whom we feel united and solidary, in contrast to everything “dead.” This sacrificial impulse is by no means a later acquisition of life, derived from originally egoistic urges. It is an original component of life and precedes all those particular “aims” and “goals” which calculation, intelligence, and reflection impose upon it later. We have an urge to sacrifice before we ever know why, for what, and for whom! Jesus’ view of nature and life, which sometimes shines through his speeches and parables in fragments and hidden allusions, shows quite clearly that he understood this fact. When he tells us not to worry about eating and drinking, it is not because he is indifferent to life and its preservation, but because he sees also a vital weakness in all “worrying” about the next day, in all concentration on one’s own physical well-being. … all voluntary concentration on one’s own bodily wellbeing, all worry and anxiety, hampers rather than furthers the creative force which instinctively and beneficently governs all life. … This kind of indifference to the external means of life (food, clothing, etc.) is not a sign of indifference to life and its value, but rather of a profound and secret confidence in life’s own vigor and of an inner security from the mechanical accidents which may befall it. A gay, light, bold, knightly indifference to external circumstances, drawn from the depth of life itself—that is the feeling which inspires these words! Egoism and fear of death are signs of a declining, sick, and broken life. …
This attitude is completely different from that of recent modern realism in art and literature, the exposure of social misery, the description of little people, the wallowing in the morbid—a typical ressentiment phenomenon. Those people saw something bug-like in everything that lives, whereas Francis sees the holiness of “life” even in a bug.”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1961), pp. 88-92

Love, Life, Death, People

“It's queer they'd be allowin' the sick ones to read books when I'll bet it's the same lazy readin' in the house bought the half of them down with the consumption itself.”

Eugene O'Neill The Straw

Carmody: Act 1, Scene 2
The Straw (1919)

Books, Reading, Housing

“on the radio I heard the news
of that day
at least 6 times, I was
well versed in world
affairs.
the remainder of the stations played a
thin, sick music.
the classical stations refused to come in
clearly
and when they did
it was a stale repetition of standard and
tiresome works.

I turned the radio off.
a strange whirling began in my
head—it circled behind the forehead, clockwise…
I began to wonder, is this what happens
when one goes
mad?”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

"jam"
The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992)

World, Music, Time, Madness

“The world is poor for him who has never been sick enough for this 'voluptuousness of hell':”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Ecce homo

"Why I am Destiny", 6. Trans. R. J. Hollingdale
Ecce Homo (1888)

World, Hell

“The dead lay unburied, and each man as he recognized a friend among them shuddered with grief and horror; while the living whom they were leaving behind, wounded or sick, were to the living far more shocking than the dead, and more to be pitied than those who had perished.”

Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War

Book VII, 7.75-[3]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VII

Dead

“For truly on countless occasions throughout my life I have had this experience; persons for a time talk pleasantly with me because of my work among the sick, in which they think me very well trained, but when they learn later on that I am also trained in mathematics, they avoid me for the most part and are no longer at all glad to be with me.”

Galén (129–216) Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher

Galen. Margaret Tallmadge May (trans.) On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body, Ithaca, New York: Cornell U. Press, 1968. p. 502.
Context: A god, as I have said, commanded me to tell the first use also, and he himself knows that I have shrunk from its obscurity. He knows too that not only here but also in many other places in these commentaries, if it depended on me, I would omit demonstrations requiring astronomy, geometry, music, or any other logical discipline, lest my books should be held in utter detestation by physicians. For truly on countless occasions throughout my life I have had this experience; persons for a time talk pleasantly with me because of my work among the sick, in which they think me very well trained, but when they learn later on that I am also trained in mathematics, they avoid me for the most part and are no longer at all glad to be with me. Accordingly, I am always wary of touching on such subjects, and in this case it is only in obedience to the command of a divinity, as I have said, that I have used the theorems of geometry

Life, Mathematics, Thinking, Learning

“Heroism is the brilliant triumph of the soul over the flesh — that is to say, over fear: fear of poverty, of suffering, of calumny, of sickness, of isolation, and of death.”

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) Swiss philosopher and poet

1 October 1849
Journal Intime (1882), Journal entries
Context: Heroism is the brilliant triumph of the soul over the flesh — that is to say, over fear: fear of poverty, of suffering, of calumny, of sickness, of isolation, and of death. There is no serious piety without heroism. Heroism is the dazzling and glorious concentration of courage.

Death, Fear, Soul, Suffering

“The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid.”

Livy (-59–17 BC) Roman historian

Introduction to Ab urbe condita (trans. Aubrey de Sélincourt, 1960)
Context: The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid.
I hope my passion for Rome's past has not impaired my judgement, for I do honestly believe that no country has ever been greater or purer than ours or richer in good citizens and noble deeds...

History, Study, Country

“We’re only here for a little while, and you’ve got to have some fun, right? I don’t take myself seriously, and I think the ones that do, there’s some sickness with people like that. That’s why I live in Florida.”

Burt Reynolds (1936–2018) American actor, director and producer.

"Burt Reynolds Has Made Mistakes. But He Regrets Nothing." in The New York Times (23 March 2018) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/movies/burt-reynolds-the-last-movie-star.html. Chosen as the Quote of the Day for 6 September 2018.

People, Thinking

“I don't have time, really, to work out or play a sport. But I love to dance. I like to run in the springtime or in the fall. I like to go outside. I don't like running on a treadmill. I get tired… I just get sick of it. But if I'm outside, I could just run for ages. Or walk, if I need a break.”

AnnaSophia Robb (1993) American actress, singer, and model

Radio Free Entertainment interview (2007)
Context: I like to climb. I don't love to work out. Actually, I hate to work out. You know, I tell myself, "AnnaSophia, you have to work out. You haven't gotten any exercise in the longest time." You know, I don't have time, really, to work out or play a sport. But I love to dance. I like to run in the springtime or in the fall. I like to go outside. I don't like running on a treadmill. I get tired... I just get sick of it. But if I'm outside, I could just run for ages. Or walk, if I need a break.

Love, Age, Sport, Time

“Study how to give as one that is sick: that thou mayest hereafter give as one that is whole. Fast; drink water only; abstain altogether from desire, that thou mayest hereafter confirm thy desire to Reason.”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

101
Golden Sayings of Epictetus

Drink, Study, Water

“And when you offer the lame and sick,
Is it not evil?
Offer it then to your governor!
Would he be pleased with you?
Would he accept you favorably?
Says the LORD of hosts.”

Malachi Biblical prophet

Source: Book of Malachi, Chapter 1, Verse 8, Lines 3-8, (NKJV)

“I really was sick. I swear. I almost died back there on the ship, you know.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

"I know. Every time you almost die, I almost die myself."
Clary and Jace, pg.449
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

Relation ships

“Be praised, my Lord, through those who forgive for love of you; through those who endure sickness and trial. Happy those who endure in peace, for by you, Most High, they will be crowned.”

Francis of Assisi Canticle of the Sun

Canticle of the Sun

Love, Happiness, Making love, Peace

“There are monasteries where there is no discipline, and which are worse than brothels — ut prae his lupanaria sint et magis sobria et magis pudica. There are others where religion is nothing but ritual; and these are worse than the first, for the Spirit of God is not in them, and they are inflated with self-righteousness. There are those, again, where the brethren are so sick of the imposture that they keep it up only to deceive the vulgar. The houses are rare indeed where the rule is seriously observed, and even in these few, if you look to the bottom, you will find small sincerity. But there is craft, and plenty of it — craft enough to impose on mature men, not to say innocent boys; and this is called profession. Suppose a house where all is as it ought to be, you have no security that it will continue so. A good superior may be followed by a fool or a tyrant, or an infected brother may introduce a moral plague. True, in extreme cases a monk may change his house, or even may change his order, but leave is rarely given. There is always a suspicion of something wrong, and on the least complaint such a person is sent back.”

Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, and theologian

Letter to Lambertus Grunnius (August 1516), published in Life and Letters of Erasmus : Lectures delivered at Oxford 1893-4 (1894) http://books.google.com/books?id=ussXAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA180&lpg=PA180&dq=%22is+no+discipline+and+which+are+worse+than+brothels%22&source=bl&ots=PnJjrkSLNB&sig=JPY0PhTf2YgYwJlf3uH2eTvCJeA&hl=en&ei=BGwXTNqTA5XANu6_pJ8L&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22is%20no%20discipline%20and%20which%20are%20worse%20than%20brothels%22&f=false edited by James Anthony Froude, p. 180

Men, God, Religion, Fools

“Virtue supposes liberty, as the carrying of a burden supposes active force. Under coercion there is no virtue, and without virtue there is no religion. Make a slave of me, and I shall be no better for it. Even the sovereign has no right to use coercion to lead men to religion, which by its nature supposes choice and liberty. My thought is no more subject to authority than is sickness or health.”

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

"Canon Law: Ecclesiastical Ministry" (1771)
Questions sur l'Encyclopédie (1770–1774)
Original: (fr) La vertu suppose la liberté, comme le transport d’un fardeau suppose la force active. Dans la contrainte point de vertu, et sans vertu point de religion. Rends-moi esclave, je n’en serai pas meilleur. Le souverain même n’a aucun droit d’employer la contrainte pour amener les hommes à la religion, qui suppose essentiellement choix et liberté. Ma pensée n’est pas plus soumise à l’autorité que la maladie ou la santé.

Men, Health, Making love, Religion

“The demography of happiness, in this study the government found out that young people are happier than old people, and they found out that people that earn more are happier than people that earn less, and they found out that well people are happier than sick people… It took $249,000 to find out that it’s better to be rich, young and healthy than old, poor and sick.”

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

On US government spending. Interview on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson on 01/03/1975 as shown on YouTube The Tonight Show video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNmnmdtcdcg <br class="br">1970s

Happiness, People, Study

“If i could change one thing about the world, it'd be:
Their thinking, because nowadays their thinking has become so sick that they do not see anything other than their religion. they keep fighting and quarreling with each other in the name of religion, they all forget that there is no greater religion than humanity. I want to change their thinking so that peace and harmony prevails between them.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

World, Peace, Religion, Thinking

“If you were sick…you would do whatever necessary to get better.
So why don't we do the same for the Earth?”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

“I am absolutely dumbfounded
by people
who feel they can spew out hatred and negativity like a violently sick Dragon…
but do not think of Retribution
nor the black soot that their filthy Karma is heavy with.
Karma is a real true Bitch!
She always comes to pay you a visit
when you least expect it.
I count on it…
because I work so hard to keep my side of the street clean.
The evil shan't ever win.
I'll stand there while you are burned to a crisp before me.
Good always prevails
in the End.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

People, Feeling, Thinking, Evil

“You know, I'm sick and tired of people pointing rifles at me.”

Carrie Vaughn (1973) American writer

Source: Kitty Takes a Holiday

People

“I felt like crying but nothing came out. it was just a sort of sad sickness, sick sad, when you can’t feel any worse. I think you know it. I think everybody knows it now and then. but I think I have known it pretty often, too often.”

Charles Bukowski book Tales of Ordinary Madness

Variant: I felt like crying but nothing came out. it was just a sort of sad sickness, sick sad, when you can't feel any worse. I think you know it. I think everybody knows it now and then. but I think I have known it pretty often, too often.
Source: Tales of Ordinary Madness

Sadness, Feeling, Thinking, Cry

“If your friend is sick and dying, the most important thing he wants is not an explanation; he wants you to sit with him. He's terrified of being alone more than anything else. So, God has not left us alone.”

Lee Strobel (1952) American writer

God

“Incredible nervous state, trepidation beyond words: to be this much in love is to be sick (and I love to be sick).”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

Source: The Impossible

Love

“You can’t keep messing me around like this. It’s been going on too long. I can’t take it anymore. I get sick every time you come around. Then I get sick when you leave. You’re like a disease to me.”

Sam Shepard Fool for Love

Source: Fool for Love

Disease, Time

“The paper, the stapler, the staples, the tape. It makes me sick. Physical things. Forty years of loving someone becomes staples and tape.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Love

“The first duty of the novelist is to entertain. It is a moral duty. People who read your books are sick, sad, traveling, in the hospital waiting room while someone is dying. Books are written by the alone for the alone.”

Donna Tartt (1963) American writer

People, Books, Sadness, Travel

“High School is like a sickness, but trust me, soon the fever breaks and you get over it." ~She's Come Undone”

Wally Lamb (1950) american novelist

School

“Love: the sickest of Irony’s sick jokes. The place where logic and order go to die.”

Christopher Moore book Coyote Blue

Source: Coyote Blue

Love

“It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we would millenniums ago have disappeared from the face of the earth.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

On Intent
Writers at Work (1977)

“He was sick with lust and mesmerized with regret”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22

“You are a sick, sick man,” I told him.
“Thank you,” Ben replied, looking modest.”

Patricia Briggs book Silver Borne

Source: Silver Borne

“I used to be strong, but now I am weak.
I used to be pretty, but now I look sick.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

Strong

“Why should women have to fit into child sizes in order to be considered desirable? That is both sick and depressing.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Queen of Babble

Women

“In a sick society, women who have difficulty fitting in are not ill but demonstrating a healthy and positive response.”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) American feminist, writer, commercial artist, lecturer and social reformer

Women

“Indifference is the sign of sickness, a sickness of the soul more contagious than any other.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Source: The Judges

Soul, Indifference

“A will to be unkind is like a sickness. It can be healed or driven out. But to be unkind because you are thoughtless is the worst kind of blindness: difficult to cure, because you cannot see the fault even as you commit it.”

Cameron Dokey (1956) American writer

Source: Golden: A Retelling of Rapunzel

“Sickness and healing are in every heart; death and deliverance in every hand.”

Orson Scott Card book Speaker for the Dead

Source: Speaker for the Dead

Death, Heart

“The shaman is not merely a sick man, or a madman; he is a sick man who has healed himself.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

Source: The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens & the I Ching

“Written on her tombstone: "I told you I was sick.”

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…

“Weary of myself, and sick of asking
What I am, and what I ought to be,
At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me
Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

Sea

“They don't really pay attention to me, except when they need my blood or something. I wouldn't even be alive, if it wasn't for Kate being sick.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

“In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), unplaced by chapter
Context: Ellen, only last night, asked, 'Daddy, when will we be rich?' But I did not say to her what I know: 'We will be rich soon, and you who handle poverty badly will handle riches equally badly.' And that is true. In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms.

Money, Change

“Sickness is the vengeance of nature for the violation of her laws.”

Charles Simmons (1924–2017) American editor and writer

Law, Nature

“Meanwhile I'll probably see him again. That's how sick I am.”

Candace Bushnell (1958) American author

“I am sick of the girl who cries 'wolf' all the time. Even though not one of those cries was ever a false alarm”

Elizabeth Wurtzel (1967–2020) American author and journalist

Girl, Wolf, Time, Falseness

“Jesus is the starving, the parched, the prisoner, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the dying. Jesus is the oppressed, the poor. To live with Jesus is to live with the poor. To live with the poor is to live with Jesus.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Source: Community And Growth

“I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead. Not sick. Not wounded. Dead.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Food, Dead

“The thing with giving up is you never know. You never know whether you could have done the job. And I'm sick of not knowing about my life.”

Sophie Kinsella book Remember Me?

Source: Remember Me?

Life

“You’re never too old, never too bad, never too late and never too sick to start from the scratch once again.”

Bikram Choudhury (1946) Indian yogi

“And then there's the sickness I feel from looking at legs I can't touch, or at lips that don't smile at me. Or hips that don't reach for me. And hearts that don't beat for me.”

Markus Zusak book Fighting Ruben Wolfe

Source: Fighting Ruben Wolfe

Smile, Feeling, Heart

“Be grateful that you only see the outward man. Be grateful that you never see the passions, the hatreds, the jealousies, the malice, the sicknesses… Be grateful you rarely see the frightening truth in people.”

Alfred Bester book The Demolished Man

Source: The Demolished Man

People, Truth, Jealousy, Passion

“I missed him so much that I had physical sensations of loss, all over my body. Like one minute I was missing an arm, the next my spleen. It was making me feel sick, like throwing up.”

Augusten Burroughs book Running with Scissors

Source: Running with Scissors

Feeling, Loss

“We'd get sick on too many cookies, but ever so much sicker on no cookies at all.”

Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright

“To think is to be sick…”

Djuna Barnes book Nightwood

Source: Nightwood

Thinking

“I have consistently loved books that I've read when I've been sick in bed.”

Tracy Chevalier (1962) American writer

Love, Books, Reading

“Jamie: You know what I figured out today?
Landon: What?
Jamie: Maybe God has a bigger plan for me than I had for myself. Like this journey never ends. Like you were sent to me because I'm sick. To help me through all this. You're my angel.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Variant: Maybe God has a bigger plan for me that i had for myself,
likes, this journey never ends,
likes, you were sent to me because I'm sick, to help me through all this,
you're my angel!
Source: A Walk to Remember

God, Angels, Help

“The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”

Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978) Vice-President of the USA under Lyndon B. Johnson

Remarks at the dedication of the Hubert H. Humphrey Building, November 1, 1977, Congressional Record, November 4, 1977, vol 123, p. 37287.

Life, Children, Age

“The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm.”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing

Notes on Hospitals 3rd Edition (1863), Preface
Variant: It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a hospital that it should do the sick no harm.
Source: Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not