"It is infinitely better to transplant a heart than to bury it so it can be devoured by worms." - Christiaan Barnard, quoted in Time

"To array a man's will against his sickness is the supreme art of medicine." - Henry Ward Beecher

"After two days in hospital, I took a turn for the nurse." - W. C. Fields

"The universal medicine for the Soul is the Supreme Reason and Absolute Justice; for the mind, mathematical and practical Truth; for the body, the Quintessence, a combination of light and gold." - Albert Pike

"I find the medicine worse than the malady." - FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER, Love's Cure

"Physicians of the Utmost Fame
Were called at once; but when they came
They answered, as they took their Fees,
There is no Cure for this Disease."
- HILAIRE BELLOC, Henry King

"Physician, heal thyself." - BIBLE, Luke 4:23

"Medicine, the only profession that labors incessantly to destroy the reason for its own existence." - JAMES BRYCE, speech (1914)

"Surgeons must be very careful
When they take the knife!
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the Culprit - Life!"
- EMILY DICKINSON, Surgeons must be very careful

"Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases." - HIPPOCRATES, Aphorisms

"One of the most difficult things to contend with in a hospital is the assumption on the part of the staff that because you have lost your gall bladder you have also lost your mind." - JEAN KERR, Please Don't Eat the Daisies

"As long as men are liable to die and are desirous to live, a physician will be made fun of, but he will be well paid." - LA BRUYERES, Les Caracteres

"Poisons and medicine are oftentimes the same substance given with different intents." - PETER MERE LATHAM, General Remarks on the Practice of Medicine

"The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals." - WILLIAM OSLER, Science and Immortality

"Cur'd yesterday of my disease,
I died last night of my physician."
- MATTHEW PRIOR, The Remedy Worse than the Disease

"There are worse occupations in this world than feeling a woman's pulse." - LAURENCE STERNE, A Sentimental Journey

"Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic." - THOMAS SZASZ,The Second Sin

"The great secret of doctors, known only to their wives, but still hidden from the public, is that most things get better by themselves; most things, in fact, are better in the morning." - LEWIS THOMAS, in New York Times Magazine

"It should be the function of medicine to help people die young as late in life as possible." - ERNST WYNDER, quoted in New York Times