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By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy-indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred of self satisfaction.

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
Virtue
Pursuit
Carelessness
Causes
Satisfaction
Pursuits
Knowledge
Honesty
Absorption
Fighting
Lack
Bred
Whatever
Integrity
Foe
Character
Cause
Apathy
Self
Fight
Contempt
Dangerous
Indifference

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Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability.
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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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No bubble is so iridescent or floats longer than that blown by the successful teacher.
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We doctors have always been a simple trusting folk. Did we not believe Galen implicitly for 1500 years and Hippocrates for more than 2000?
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Let each hour of the day have its allotted duty, and cultivate that power of concentration which grows with its exercise.
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Nature, the great Moloch, which exacts a frightful tax of human blood, sparing neither young nor old taking the child from the cradle, the mother from her babe, and the father from the family.
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Gentlemen, I have a confession to make. Half of what we have taught you is in error, and furthermore we cannot tell you which half it is
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A well-trained, sensible doctor is one of the most valuable assets of a community.
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Think not of the amount to be accomplished, the difficulties to be overcome, or the end to be attained, but set earnestly at the little task at your elbow, letting that be sufficient for the day.
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Medicine is learned by the bedside and not in the classroom. Let not your conceptions of disease come from words heard in the lecture room or read from the book. See, and then reason and compare and control. But see first.
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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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For the general practitioner a well-used library is one of the few correctives of the premature senility which is so apt to take him.
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Even in populous districts, the practice of medicine is a lonely road which winds up-hill all the way and a man may easily go astray and never reach the Delectable Mountains unless he early finds those shepherd guides of whom Bunyan tells, Knowledge, Experience, Watchful, and Sincere.
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He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all.
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Shut out all of your past except that which will help you weather your tomorrows.
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I desire no other epitaph - no hurry about it, I may say - than the statement that I taught medical students in the wards, as I regard this as by far the most useful and important work I have been called upon to do.
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Taking a lady's hand gives her confidence in her physician.
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Too many men slip early out of the habit of studious reading, and yet that is essential.
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Nothing will sustain you more potently than the power to recognize in your humdrum routine, as perhaps it may be thought, the true poetry of life.
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Avoid wine and women - choose a freckly-faced girl for a wife they are invariably more amiable.
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