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Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability.

William Osler

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William Osler
Age: 70 †
Born: 1849
Born: July 12
Died: 1919
Died: December 29
Physician
Professor
Sir William Osler
Sir William
WO
Probability
Uncertainty
Medical
Medicine
Science
Art

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It is much simpler to buy books than to read them and easier to read them than to absorb their contents.
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Care more for the individual patient than for the special features of the disease. . . . Put yourself in his place . . . The kindly word, the cheerful greeting, the sympathetic look - these the patient understands.
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Now the way of life that I preach is a habit to be acquired gradually by long and steady repetition. It is the practice of living for the day only, and for the day's work.
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Acquire the art of detachment, the virtue of method, and the quality of thoroughness, but above all the grace of humility.
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There are, in truth, no specialties in medicine, since to know fully many of the most important diseases a man must be familiar with their manifestations in many organs.
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In the Mortality Bills, pneumonia is an easy second, to tuberculosis indeed in many cities the death-rate is now higher and it has become, to use the phrase of Bunyan 'the captain of the men of death.'
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Take the sum of human achievement in action, in science, in art, in literature subtract the work of the men above forty, and while we should miss great treasures, even priceless treasures, we would practically be where we are today ... The effective, moving, vitalizing work of the world is done between the ages of twenty-five and forty.
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The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade a calling, not a business a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head.
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The trained nurse has become one of the great blessings of humanity, taking a place beside the physician and the priest.
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Conservatism and old fogeyism are totally different things the motto of one is Prove all things and hold fast that which is good and of the other Prove nothing but hold fast that which is old.
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The higher education so much needed today is not given in the school, is not to be bought in the market place, but it has to be wrought out in each one of us for himself it is the silent influence of character on character.
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Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day's work absorb your entire energies, and satisfy your widest ambition.
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The uselessness of men above sixty years of age and the incalculable benefit it would be in commercial, in political, and in professional life, if as a matter of course, men stopped work at this age.
William Osler
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If it were not for the great variability among individuals, medicine might as well be a science, not an art.
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The person who takes medicine must recover twice, once from the disease and once from the medicine.
William Osler
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Patients rarely die of the disease from which they suffer. Secondary or terminal infections are the real cause of death.
William Osler
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The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.
William Osler
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One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.
William Osler
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Too many men slip early out of the habit of studious reading, and yet that is essential.
William Osler
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The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.
William Osler