I profess to learn and to teach anatomy not from books but from dissections, not from the tenets of Philosophers but from the fabric of Nature.

There is no perfect knowledge which can be entitled ours, that is innate; none but what has been obtained from experience, or derived in some way from our senses.

As art is a habit with reference to things to be done, so is science a habit in respect to things to be known.

Civilization is only a series of victories against nature.

Very many maintain that all we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains unknown; nor do philosophers pin their faith to others' precepts in such wise that they lose their liberty, and cease to give credence to the conclusions of their proper senses. Neither do they swear such fealty to their mistress Antiquity that they openly, and in sight of all, deny and desert their friend Truth.

Very many maintain that all we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains unknown.

And so I conclude that blood lives and is nourished of itself and in no way depends on any other part of the body as being prior to it or more excellent... So that from this we may perceive the causes not only of life in general... but also of longer or shorter life, of sleeping and waking, of skill, of strength and so forth.