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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.

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
Education
Hurry
Called
Statement
Upon
Statements
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Useful
May
Medical
Important
Regard
Work
Students
Wards
Taught
Epitaph

More quotes by William Osler

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Nothing is life is more wonderful than faith.
William Osler
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There is no disease more conducive to clinical humility than aneurysm of the aorta.
William Osler
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The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.
William Osler
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There is no more potent antidote to the corroding influence of mammon than the presence in the community of a body of men devoted to science, living for investigation and caring nothing for the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.
William Osler
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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.
William Osler
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To do today's work well and not to bother about tomorrow is the secret of accomplishment
William Osler
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Be calm and strong and patient. Meet failure and disappointment with courage. Rise superior to the trials of life, and never give in to hopelessness or despair. In danger, in adversity, cling to your principles and ideals. Aequanimitas!
William Osler
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But whatever you do, take neither yourselves nor your fellow-creatures too seriously. There is tragedy enough in our daily routine, but there is room too for a keen sense of the absurdities and incongruities of life, and in the shifting panorama no one sees better than the doctor the perennial sameness of men’s ways.
William Osler
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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.'
William Osler
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Now of the difficulties bound up with the public in which we doctors work, I hesitate to speak in a mixed audience. Common sense in matters medical is rare, and is usually in inverse ratio to the degree of education.
William Osler
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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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The hardest conviction to get into the mind of a beginner is that the education upon which he is engaged is not a college course, not a medical course, but a life course, for which the work of a few years under teachers is but a preparation.
William Osler
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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.
William Osler
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The extraordinary development of modern science may be her undoing. Specialism, now a necessity, has fragmented the specialities themselves in a way that makes the outlook hazardous. The workers lose all sense of proportion in a maze of minutiae.
William Osler
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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.
William Osler
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Jaundice is the disease that your friends diagnose.
William Osler
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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
William Osler
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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.
William Osler
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Every patient you see is a lesson in much more than the malady from which he suffers.
William Osler
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Shed, as you do your garments, your daily sins, whether of omission or commission, and you will wake a free man, with a new life.
William Osler