William Osler

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.

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

The very first step towards success in any occupation is to become interested in it.

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

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

The future is today.

The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.

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.

Soap and water and common sense are the best disinfectants.

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.

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

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

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.

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