What I try to get physically healthy people to understand is that they’re going to die someday. There is no way out. And dying isn’t failure, but not living is, so make use of your time. Don’t keeping waiting. – Bernie Siegel
Feelings aroused by the touch of someone’s hand, the sound of music, the smell of a flower, a beautiful sunset, a work of art, love, laughter, hope and faith – all work on both the unconscious and the conscious aspects of the self, and they have physiological consequences as well. – Bernie Siegel
The thing you see in survivors is that they express feelings – I won’t say some of the things they tell their doctors, when doctors tell them they’re going to die in six months. Boy, do they let the doctor know how they feel about that statement. – Bernie Siegel
When your heart speaks to you about what you need to do to sustain life on this planet, listen to it, make a difference, and be an inspiration for generations to come. Be inspired by people like Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Christopher Reeve, Albert Schweitzer, Helen Keller, and many others. – Bernie Siegel
The question is not, will there be difficulties and threats to our existence, but how will we deal with them and what can we learn from them. How can they become blessings to society, as a life threatening disease is to an individual, by teaching us about the meaning of our life and existence? – Bernie Siegel
An awareness of one’s mortality can lead you to wake up and live an authentic, meaningful life. – Bernie Siegel
One of the best ways to change is to act as if you are the person you want to become. When you behave as if you are a different person, you change on a very basic level – even your physiology changes. When actors and actresses perform, their body chemistry is altered by the roles they play. – Bernie Siegel
We’re all here for a limited amount of time, and life is difficult – not unfair, but difficult. The key is to really confront our fears because when we do, and when we look at them, we really begin to realize that we are capable of handling them. – Bernie Siegel
True inspiration overrides all fears. When you are inspired, you enter a trance state and can accomplish things that you may never have felt capable of doing. – Bernie Siegel
God wants us to know that life is a series of beginnings, not endings. Just as graduations are not terminations, but commencements. Creation is an ongoing process, and when we create a perfect world where love and compassion are shared by all, suffering will cease. – Bernie Siegel
Society should see parenting as a public health issue and help parents to bring their children up feeling loved. We have birthing classes, but no parenting classes. The latter is desperately needed if we are to avoid self-destruction. – Bernie Siegel
When one teenager dying of cystic fibrosis asked me, ‘Why am I different?’ I answered, ‘Tony, because it makes you beautiful.’ He loved my answer because he knew full well how much he had done for the world and that he would be immortal through his love and the fund raising of those who knew him hoping to find a cure for cystic fibrosis. – Bernie Siegel
I have learned to become not an M.D. but a ‘C.D.’ for the wounded people I meet. Yes, a ‘Chosen Dad’ who may not like their behavior but loves and reparents them and helps them to heal their lives and find self-worth and self-esteem and save their lives. – Bernie Siegel
I know patients who bring a dozen roses to the doctor’s office. And, boy, the next visit, nobody forgets that. You come in and hey – ‘Here’s the lady who brought the roses’ vs. ‘Here’s the lung cancer.’ – Bernie Siegel
A surgeon is surrounded by people who are sick, discouraged, afraid, embittered, dying – but also courageous, loving, wise, compassionate and alive. – Bernie Siegel
If I were rewriting ‘Love, Medicine & Miracles,’ I might consider changing its title to ‘The Side Effects of Cancer.’ Healing is hard work, as is any change one must make in one’s life. I and others have learned, however, that the side effects of cancer may not all be bad ones. – Bernie Siegel
I truly feel the best doctors are ones who are criticized by nurses, patients and family. They do not make excuses and learn from their mistakes. – Bernie Siegel
I wish medical schools helped us to analyze our healthy and unhealthy reasons for becoming doctors. – Bernie Siegel
There is survival behavior, and doctors need to learn from patients who do not die when they are supposed to, instead of saying, ‘You’re doing very well, so keep doing whatever you are doing.’ They should be asking what their patient is doing and pass the information to other patients. – Bernie Siegel
I decided to become a surgeon named Bernie who writes books and gives seminars to teach people what he has learned and is still learning about how to deal with life’s difficulties. – Bernie Siegel
Most of us never stop to consider our blessings; rather, we spend the day only thinking about our problems. But since you have to be alive to have problems, be grateful for the opportunity to have them. – Bernie Siegel
As doctors, we are not trained to communicate and understand the power of our words as they relate to a patient’s ability and desire to survive. – Bernie Siegel
Mind-body medicine should not be an ‘alternative,’ nor should complementary and integrative medicine be something doctors are not exposed to during their training. – Bernie Siegel
Life is a miracle, and we need to not fear trying to achieve our potential and reveal the remarkable creation we and all living things are and that our Creator has built into us the ability to induce self-healing. – Bernie Siegel
I see people who die a few minutes after a doctor tells them there is no hope of a cure. They give up and go. Others get angry and find joy in proving the doctor wrong. Something within them is challenged and hopeful. Hope is the divine motivator. – Bernie Siegel
For me, consciousness is non-local, not limited to the body, and can exist independent of it. – Bernie Siegel
The mind and body are not separate units, but one integrated system. How we act and what we think, eat, and feel are all related to our health. Physicians should be capable of teaching this behavior to patients. – Bernie Siegel
