Physician Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old physician quotes, physician sayings, and physician proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease. William Osler
A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant. Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The young physician starts life with 20 drugs for each disease, and the old physician ends life with one drug for 20 diseases. William Osler
The role of a clown and a physician are the same - it's to elevate the possible and to relieve suffering. Patch Adams
A physician is obligated to consider more than a diseased organ, more even than the whole man - he must view the man in his world. Harvey Cushing
My job as a physician is to make sure I have provided my patients with the best options to make the decisions that affect their lives. Ami Bera
The physician must be able to tell the antecedents, know the present, and foretell the future — must mediate these things, and have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm. Hippocrates
He who cures a disease may be the skillfullest, but he that prevents it is the safest physician. Thomas Fuller
He's the best physician that knows the worthlessness of the most medicines. Benjamin Franklin
A physician is an unfortunate gentleman who is every day required to perform a miracle; namely to reconcile health with intemperance. Voltaire
The true physician is also a ruler having the human body as a subject, and is not a mere money-maker. Plato
Physicians of all men are most happy; what good success they have, the world proclaimeth, and what faults they commit, the earth covereth. Francis Quarles
A young physician fattens the churchyard. French Proverb
When he can render no further aid, the physician alone can mourn as a man with his incurable patient. This is the physician's sad lot. Arateus of Cappadocia
The physician himself, if sick, actually calls in another physician, knowing that he cannot reason correctly if required to judge his own condition while suffering. Aristotle
Every physician must be rich in knowledge, and not only of that which is written in books; his patients should be his book, they will never mislead him. Paracelsus
A physician is nothing but a consoler of the mind Petronius
The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his clients to plant vines Frank Lloyd Wright
A physician can sometimes parry the scythe of death, but has no power over the sand in the hourglass Hester Lynch Piozzi
Our reliance on the physician is a kind of despair of ourselves. Ralph Waldo Emerson
The best physician is he who can distinguish the possible from the impossible. Herophilos
A physician's physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric's divinity has to his power of influencing conduct. Samuel Butler
He is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A careful physician, before he attempts to administer a remedy to his patient, must investigate not only the malady of the man he wishes to cure, but also his habits when in health, and his physical constitution. Marcus Tullius Cicero