Mark Silverman > Quotes

“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.”
― Mark E. Silverman, The Quotable Osler - Revised Paperback Edition

“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. THE MASTER-WORD IN MEDICINE, IN AEQUANIMITAS, 368.”
― Mark E. Silverman, The Quotable Osler - Revised Paperback Edition

“What is your duty in the matter of telling a patient that he is probably the subject of an incurable disease? … One thing is certain; it is not for you to don the black cap, and, assuming the judicial function, take hope from any patient—”hope that comes to all.” LECTURES ON ANGINA PECTORIS AND ALLIED STATES,”
― Mark E. Silverman, The Quotable Osler - Revised Paperback Edition

“Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability. BEAN WB. SIR WILLIAM OSLER: APHORISMS, 129.”
― Mark E. Silverman, The Quotable Osler - Revised Paperback Edition

“The art of the practice of medicine is to be learned only by experience; ‘tis not an inheritance; it cannot be revealed. Learn to see, learn to hear, learn to feel, learn to smell, and know that by practice alone can you become expert. THAYER WS. OSLER THE TEACHER, IN OSLER AND OTHER PAPERS, 1.”
― Mark E. Silverman, The Quotable Osler - Revised Paperback Edition

“The trained nurse has become one of the great blessings of humanity, taking a place beside the physician and the priest, and not inferior to either in her mission…. Time out of mind she has made one of a trinity…. Kindly heads have always been ready to devise means for allaying suffering; tender hearts, surcharged with the miseries of this “battered caravanserai” [an oriental inn], have ever been ready to speak to the sufferer of a way of peace, and loving hands have ever ministered to those in sorrow, need and sickness. NURSE AND PATIENT, IN AEQUANIMITAS, 156.”
― Mark E. Silverman, The Quotable Osler - Revised Paperback Edition

“Perhaps no sin so easily besets us as a sense of self-satisfied superiority to others. It cannot always be called pride, that master sin, but more often it is an attitude of mind which either leads to bigotry and prejudice or to such a vaunting conceit in the truth of one’s own beliefs and positions, that there is no room for tolerance of ways and thoughts which are not as ours are. CHAUVINISM IN MEDICINE, IN AEQUANIMITAS, 270.”
― Mark E. Silverman, The Quotable Osler - Revised Paperback Edition

“Errors in judgment must occur in the practice of an art which consists largely of balancing probabilities. TEACHER AND STUDENT, IN AEQUANIMITAS, 38.”
― Mark E. Silverman, The Quotable Osler - Revised Paperback Edition

“Observation plus thinking has given us the vast stores of knowledge we now possess of the structure of the bodies of living creatures in health and disease. There have been two inherent difficulties—to get men to see straight and to get men to think clearly; but in spite of the frailty of the instrument, the method has been one of the most powerful ever placed in the hands of man. THE PATHOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF A GENERAL HOSPITAL. GLASGOW MED J 1911;76:321-33.”
― Mark E. Silverman, The Quotable Osler - Revised Paperback Edition

“In the first place, in the physician or surgeon no quality takes rank with imperturbability…. Imperturbability means coolness and presence of mind under all circumstances, calmness amid storm, clearness of judgment in moments of grave peril, immobility, impassiveness, or, to use an old and expressive word, phlegm. It is the quality which is most appreciated by the laity though often misunderstood by them; and the physician who has the misfortune to be without it, who betrays indecision and worry, and who shows that he is flustered and flurried in ordinary emergencies, loses rapidly the confidence of his patients. AEQUANIMITAS, IN AEQUANIMITAS, 3–4.”
― Mark E. Silverman, The Quotable Osler - Revised Paperback Edition

“The trained nurse as a factor in life may be regarded from many points of view—philanthropic, social, personal, professional and domestic. To her virtues we have been exceedingly kind—tongues have dropped manna in their description. To her faults—well let us be blind. NURSE AND PATIENT, IN AEQUANIMITAS, 149.”
― Mark E. Silverman, The Quotable Osler - Revised Paperback Edition

“To keep his mind sweet, the modern scientific man should be saturated with the Bible and Plato, with Homer, Shakespeare, and Milton; to see life through their eyes may enable him to strike a balance between the rational and the emotional, which is the most serious difficulty of the intellectual life. SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY, 42.”
― Mark E. Silverman, The Quotable Osler - Revised Paperback Edition

“We, the doctors, are so fallible, ever beset with the common fatal facility of reaching conclusions from superficial observations, and constantly misled by the ease with which our minds fall into the ruts of one or two experiences. TEACHER AND STUDENT, IN AEQUANIMITAS, 35–6.”
― Mark E. Silverman, The Quotable Osler - Revised Paperback Edition

“Yours is a higher and more sacred duty. Think not to light a light before men that they may see your good works; contrariwise, you belong to the great army of quiet workers, physicians and priests, sisters and nurses, all over the world, the members of which strive not neither do they cry, nor are their voices heard in the streets, but to them is given the ministry of consolation in sorrow, need, and sickness. THE MASTER-WORD IN MEDICINE, IN AEQUANIMITAS, 370.”
― Mark E. Silverman, The Quotable Osler - Revised Paperback Edition

“Beware of words—they are dangerous things. They change colour like the chameleon, and they return like a boomerang. THAYER WS. OSLER THE TEACHER, IN OSLER AND OTHER PAPERS,”
― Mark E. Silverman, The Quotable Osler - Revised Paperback Edition

“Shun as most pernicious that frame of mind, too often, I fear, seen in physicians, which assumes an air of superiority, and limits as worthy of your communion only those with satisfactory collegiate or sartorial credentials. The passports of your fellowship should be honesty of purpose, and a devotion to the highest interests of our profession, and these you will find widely diffused, sometimes apparent only when you get beneath the crust of a rough exterior. THE ARMY SURGEON. MED NEWS [PHILADELPHIA] 1894:318-22.”
― Mark E. Silverman, The Quotable Osler - Revised Paperback Edition

“It is only by the methodical examination of every system and organ that we get those comprehensive facts from which we can draw reasonably safe inductions. UNPUBLISHED DRAFT OF AN ADDRESS TO MEDICAL STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 1885. PUBLISHED PRIVATELY BY THE OSLER LIBRARY, MCGILL UNIVERSITY, MONTREAL, 2006.”
― Mark E. Silverman, The Quotable Osler - Revised Paperback Edition

“The philosophies of one age have become the absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of to-morrow. CHAUVINISM IN MEDICINE, IN AEQUANIMITAS,”
― Mark E. Silverman, The Quotable Osler - Revised Paperback Edition