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

In seeking absolute truth we aim at the unattainable and must be content with broken portions.
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

It is much simpler to buy books than to read them and easier to read them than to absorb their contents.
William Osler

Look wise, say nothing, and grunt. Speech was given to conceal thought.
William Osler

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

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

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

One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.
William Osler


Soap and water and common sense are the best disinfectants.
William Osler

The best preparation for tomorrow is to do today's work superbly well.
William Osler

The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.
William Osler

The first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.
William Osler

The future is today.
William Osler

The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.
William Osler

The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.
William Osler

The natural man has only two primal passions, to get and to beget.
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

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