Quotes by William Osler

We may indeed be justly proud of our apostolic succesion. THESE ARE OUR METHODS - to carefully observe the phenomena of life in all its stages , to cultivate reasoning faculty so as to be able to know the true from the false. THIS IS OUR WORK - to prevent disease, to relieve suffering and to heal the sick.

To talk of diseases is a sort of Arabian Nights entertainment.

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

In science, the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs.

The librarian of today, and it will be true still more of the librarians of tomorrow, are not fiery dragons interposed between the people and the books. They are useful public servants, who manage libraries in the interest of the public... Many still think that a great reader, or a writer of books, will make an excellent librarian. This is pure fallacy.

The best preparation for tomorrow is to do todays work superbly well.

No bubble is so iridescent or floats longer than that blown by the successful teacher.

The teachers life should have three periods, study until twenty-five, investigation until forty, profession until sixty, at which age I would have him retired on a double allowance.

Soap and water and common sense are the best disinfectants.

The good physician treats the disease the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.

The good physician treats the disease the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.

To study the phenomena of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all.

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.

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.

In seeking absolute truth we aim at the unattainable and must be content with broken portions.

There is no more difficult art to acquire than the art of observation, and for some men it is quite as difficult to record an observation in brief and plain language.

The philosophies of one age have become the absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow.

We are here to add what we can to life, not to get what we can from life.

Observe, record, tabulate, communicate. Use your five senses. Learn to see, learn to hear, learn to feel, learn to smell, and know that by practice alone you can become expert.

To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals - this alone is worth the struggle.