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

More quotes by William Osler

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To confess ignorance is often wiser than to beat about the bush with a hypothetical diagnosis.
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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The great minds, the great works transcend all limitations of time, of language, and of race, and the scholar can never feel initiated into the company of the elect until he can approach all of life's problems from the cosmopolitan standpoint.
William Osler
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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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Start at once a bedside library and spend the last half hour of the day in communion with the saints of humanity.
William Osler
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It is strange how the memory of a man may float to posterity on what he would have himself regarded as the most trifling of his works.
William Osler
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Happiness lies in the absorption in some vocation which satisfies the soul.
William Osler
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Humanity has but three great enemies: fever, famine, and war of these by far the greatest, by far the most terrible, is fever.
William Osler
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The true poetry of life: the poetry of the commonplace, of the ordinary man, of the plain, toil-worn woman, with their loves and their joys, their sorrows and their griefs.
William Osler
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A physician who treats himself has a fool for a patient.
William Osler
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There are three classes of human beings: men, women and women physicians.
William Osler
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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.
William Osler
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The Scots are the backbone of Canada. They are all right in their three vital parts - head, heart and haggis.
William Osler
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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.
William Osler
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Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day absorb all your interest, energy and enthusiasm. The best preparation for tomorrow is to live today superbly well.
William Osler
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A library represents the mind of its collector, fancies and foibles, strengths and weaknesses, prejudices and preferences.
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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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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We doctors have always been a simple trusting folk. Did we not believe Galen implicitly for 1500 years and Hippocrates for more than 2000?
William Osler
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In seeking absolute truth we aim at the unattainable and must be content with broken portions.
William Osler