There is in man a specific lust for cruelty which infects even his passion of pity and makes it savage.

We educate one another; and we cannot do this if half of us consider the other half not good enough to talk to.

Greatness is one of the sensations of littleness

I enjoy convalescence. It is the part that makes the illness worth while.

A child hasn't a grown-up person's appetite for affection. A little of it goes a long way with them; and they like a good imitation of it better than the real thing, as every nurse knows.

There is, on the whole, nothing on earth intended for innocent people so horrible as a school. To begin with, it is a prison. But in some respects more cruel than a prison. In a prison, for instance, you are not forced to read books written by the warders and the governor. . . .In the prison you are not forced to sit listening to turnkeys discoursing without charm or interest on subjects that they don't understand and don't care about, and therefore incapable of making you understand or care about. In a prison they may torture your body; but they do not torture your brains.

There is at bottom only one genuinely scientific treatment for all diseases, and that is to stimulate the phagocytes.