The teacher’s 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. – William Osler
Variability is the law of life, and as no two faces are the same, so no two bodies are alike, and no two individuals react alike and behave alike under the abnormal conditions which we know as disease. – William Osler
It is much simpler to buy books than to read them and easier to read them than to absorb their contents. – William Osler
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. – William Osler
He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all. – William Osler
What is the student but a lover courting a fickle mistress who ever eludes his grasp? – William Osler
The philosophies of one age have become the absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow. – William Osler
No bubble is so iridescent or floats longer than that blown by the successful teacher. – William Osler
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 good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease. – William Osler
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. – William Osler
It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has. – William Osler
In seeking absolute truth we aim at the unattainable and must be content with broken portions. – William Osler
One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine. – William Osler
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. – William Osler
To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals – this alone is worth the struggle. – William Osler
