50 Inspirational Quotes That Illuminate the Heart of Medicine

"Wherever the art of Medicine is loved, there is also a love of Humanity."

- Hippocrates

"The brain-disease model overlooks four fundamental truths: (1) our capacity to destroy one another is matched by our capacity to heal one another. Restoring relationships and community is central to restoring well-being; (2) language gives us the power to change ourselves and others by communicating our experiences, helping us to define what we know, and finding a common sense of meaning; (3) we have the ability to regulate our own physiology, including some of the so-called involuntary functions of the body and brain, through such basic activities as breathing, moving, and touching; and (4) we can change social conditions to create environments in which children and adults can feel safe and where they can thrive. When we ignore these quintessential dimensions of humanity, we deprive people of ways to heal from trauma and restore their autonomy. Being a patient, rather than a participant in one’s healing process, separates suffering people from their community and alienates them from an inner sense of self."

- Bessel A. van der Kolk

"As to diseases, make a habit of two things — to help, or at least, to do no harm."

- Hippocrates

"We look for medicine to be an orderly field of knowledge and procedure. But it is not. It is an imperfect science, an enterprise of constantly changing knowledge, uncertain information, fallible individuals, and at the same time lives on the line. There is science in what we do, yes, but also habit, intuition, and sometimes plain old guessing. The gap between what we know and what we aim for persists. And this gap complicates everything we do."

- Atul Gawande

"Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food."

- Hippocrates

"The night before brain surgery, I thought about death. I searched out my larger values, and I asked myself, if I was going to die, did I want to do it fighting and clawing or in peaceful surrender? What sort of character did I hope to show? Was I content with myself and what I had done with my life so far? I decided that I was essentially a good person, although I could have been better--but at the same time I understood that the cancer didn't care. I asked myself what I believed. I had never prayed a lot. I hoped hard, I wished hard, but I didn't pray. I had developed a certain distrust of organized religion growing up, but I felt I had the capacity to be a spiritual person, and to hold some fervent beliefs. Quite simply, I believed I had a responsibility to be a good person, and that meant fair, honest, hardworking, and honorable. If I did that, if I was good to my family, true to my friends, if I gave back to my community or to some cause, if I wasn't a liar, a cheat, or a thief, then I believed that should be enough. At the end of the day, if there was indeed some Body or presence standing there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged on whether I had lived a true life, not on whether I believed in a certain book, or whether I'd been baptized. If there was indeed a God at the end of my days, I hoped he didn't say, 'But you were never a Christian, so you're going the other way from heaven.' If so, I was going to reply, 'You know what? You're right. Fine.' I believed, too, in the doctors and the medicine and the surgeries--I believed in that. I believed in them. A person like Dr. Einhorn [his oncologist], that's someone to believe in, I thought, a person with the mind to develop an experimental treatment 20 years ago that now could save my life. I believed in the hard currency of his intelligence and his research. Beyond that, I had no idea where to draw the line between spiritual belief and science. But I knew this much: I believed in belief, for its own shining sake. To believe in the face of utter hopelessness, every article of evidence to the contrary, to ignore apparent catastrophe--what other choice was there? We do it every day, I realized. We are so much stronger than we imagine, and belief is one of the most valiant and long-lived human characteristics. To believe, when all along we humans know that nothing can cure the briefness of this life, that there is no remedy for our basic mortality, that is a form of bravery. To continue believing in yourself, believing in the doctors, believing in the treatment, believing in whatever I chose to believe in, that was the most important thing, I decided. It had to be. Without belief, we would be left with nothing but an overwhelming doom, every single day. And it will beat you. I didn't fully see, until the cancer, how we fight every day against the creeping negatives of the world, how we struggle daily against the slow lapping of cynicism. Dispiritedness and disappointment, these were the real perils of life, not some sudden illness or cataclysmic millennium doomsday. I knew now why people fear cancer: because it is a slow and inevitable death, it is the very definition of cynicism and loss of spirit. So, I believed."

- Lance Armstrong

"The life so short, the craft so long to learn."

- Hippocrates

"The physician’s highest calling, his only calling, is to make sick people healthy – to heal, as it is termed."

- Samuel Hahnemann

"Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love for humanity."

- Hippocrates

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

- William Osler

"The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty -- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God."

- Mother Teresa

"Declare the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future."

- Hippocrates

"Let us be the ones who say we do not accept that a child dies every three seconds simply because he does not have the drugs you and I have. Let us be the ones to say we are not satisfied that your place of birth determines your right for life. Let us be outraged, let us be loud, let us be bold."

- Brad Pitt

"It is very expensive to give bad medical care to poor people in a rich country."

- Paul Farmer

"THE MAXIMS OF MEDICINE Before you examine the body of a patient, Be patient to learn his story. For once you learn his story, You will also come to know His body. Before you diagnose any sickness, Make sure there is no sickness in the mind or heart. For the emotions in a man’s moon or sun, Can point to the sickness in Any one of his other parts. Before you treat a man with a condition, Know that not all cures can heal all people. For the chemistry that works on one patient, May not work for the next, Because even medicine has its own Conditions. Before asserting a prognosis on any patient, Always be objective and never subjective. For telling a man that he will win the treasure of life, But then later discovering that he will lose, Will harm him more than by telling him That he may lose, But then he wins. THE MAXIMS OF MEDICINE by Suzy Kassem"

- Suzy Kassem

"I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. 26 times I have been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

- Michael Jordan

"We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown your own inner voice. Most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

- Steve Jobs

"The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well."

- Hippocrates

"Medicines can cure diseases, but only doctors can cure patients."

- Carl Jung

"Wear the white coat with dignity and pride, It is an honor and privilege to get to serve the public as a physician."

- Bill H. Warren

"To study medicine without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study medicine only from books is not to go to sea at all."

- William Osler

"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. Often the best part of your work will have nothing to do with potions and powders, but with the exercise of an influence of the strong upon the weak, of the righteous upon the wicked, of the wise upon the foolish."

- William Osler

"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

"So I told them the truth: the hours are terrible, the pay is terrible, the conditions are terrible; you’re underappreciated, unsupported, disrespected and frequently physically endangered. but there’s no better job in the world."

- Adam Kay

"He is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope."

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"In our job, you will never go home at the end of the day thinking that you haven’t done something valuable and important."

- Suneel Dhand

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."

- Albert Pujols

"[As a doctor], people will trust you, confide in you, and appreciate your efforts. You can do amazing things for people if you don’t let the system get you down."

- Dr. Wes Fischer

"While the journey seems long and hard at the beginning, with perseverance and dedication, the rewards at the end last a lifetime."

- Dr. William R. Francis

"I always tell my residents to never forget that we have the opportunity to do more good in one day than most people have in a month."

- Dr. William R. Francis

"We practice medicine that our historical ancestors could only dream of, and we have access to amazing treatments and cures for our patients on a daily basis."

- Dr. William R. Francis

"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"I remember the feeling of joy, almost to tears, the day I discharged my first patient from the hospital and the tears that I can never hold back during the miracle of birth. That feeling is reward for our hard work here [in medical school] and in years that follow… I can’t imagine being a doctor without it… I ask you to recall the vigor and happiness of our youths and then imagine the beauty of that energy channeled into the care of another human being."

- John-Paul H. Dedam MD

"All knowledge attains its ethical value and its human significance only by the human sense in which it is employed. Only a good man can be a great physician."

- Hermann Nothnagel

"The best way to predict your future is to create it."

- Peter Drucker

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose."

- Dr. Seuss

"The best doctors give the least medicine."

- Benjamin Franklin

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease."

- Voltaire

"In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity."

- Albert Einstein

"Believe you can and you’re halfway there."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts."

- Winston Churchill

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started."

- Mark Twain

"The simple act of caring is heroic."

- Edward Albert

"Hospitals should be arranged in such a way as to make being sick an interesting experience. One learns a great deal sometimes from being sick."

- Alan Wilson Watts

"The power of healing is within you. You can restore your own health by what you do… not by the pills you take, but by how you choose to live."

- Dr. Terry Wahls, MD

"Food is not just fuel. Food is about family, food is about community, food is about identity. And we nourish all those things when we eat well."

- Michael Pollan

"People pay the doctor for his trouble; for his kindness, they still remain in his debt."

- Seneca

"Choosing what you eat is the most consequential act for your health and well-being."

- Dr. Mark Hyman

"No man is brave that has never walked a hundred miles. If you want to know the truth of who you are, walk until not a person knows your name. Travel is the great leveler, the great teacher, bitter as medicine, crueler than mirror-glass. A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet introspection."

- Patrick Rothfuss

"Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the mind."

- Luther Burbank

"We can harness the power of nutrition to heal our body, balance our energy, and thrive in life."

- Dr. Elizabeth Boham

"When you become a health coach, you will literally be saving lives."

- Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

"As we change our mind, we change our body at the cellular level."

- David R. Hamilton

"Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress. When I get fed up with one, I spend the night with the other"

- Anton Chekhov

"Always laugh when you can, it is cheap medicine."

- Lord Byron

"A medicine cat has no time for doubt. Put your energy into today and stop worrying about the past."

- Erin Hunter

"The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little ‘extra.'"

- Jimmy Johnson

"Gratitude is a powerful catalyst for happiness. It’s the spark that lights a fire of joy in your soul."

- Amy Collette

"..my music isn't just music- its medicine."

- Kanye West

"Sooner or later your work speaks for itself. Outlasting critics feel like it will take a very long time, but you’re more patient than they are."

- Seth Godin

"I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary."

- Elon Musk

"You have to be odd to be number 1."

- Dr. Seuss

"How do you tell the psychiatrists from the patients in the hospital? The patients get better and leave."

- Lisa Scottoline

"After you find out all the things that can go wrong, your life becomes less about living and more about waiting."

- Chuck Palahniuk

"Isn’t it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do “practice”?"

- George Carlin

"The chapter you are learning today is going to save someone’s life tomorrow. Pay attention."

"The presence of the doctor is the beginning of the cure."