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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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William Osler
Age: 70 †
Born: 1849
Born: July 12
Died: 1919
Died: December 29
Physician
Professor
Sir William Osler
Sir William
WO
Half
Tell
Furthermore
Cannot
Gentlemen
Make
Confession
Error
Gentleman
Errors
Taught

More quotes by William Osler

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The future belongs to Science. More and more she will control the destinies of the nations. Already she has them in her crucible and on her balances.
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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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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No human being is constituted to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and even the best of men must be content with fragments, with partial glimpses, never the full fruition.
William Osler
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Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability.
William Osler
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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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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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When schemes are laid in advance, it is surprising how often the circumstances will fit in with them.
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The very first step towards success in any occupation is to become interested in it.
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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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The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.
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The young doctor should look about early for an avocation, a pastime, that will take him away from patients, pills, and potions.
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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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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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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.
William Osler
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The successful teacher is no longer on a height, pumping knowledge at high pressure into passive receptacles.
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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.
William Osler
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It is not the delicate neurotic person who is prone to angina, but the robust, the vigorous in mind and body, the keen and ambitious man, the indicator of whose engines is always at full speed ahead.
William Osler
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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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The clean tongue, the clear head, and the bright eye are birthrights of each day.
William Osler