The hardest conviction to get into the mind of a beginner is that the education upon which he is engaged is not a college course, not a medical course, but a life course, for which the work of a few years under teachers is but a preparation.

I desire no other epitaph - no hurry about it, I may say - than the statement that I taught medical students in the wards, as I regard this as by far the most useful and important work I have been called upon to do.

The very first step towards success in any occupation is to become interested in it.

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

The extraordinary development of modern science may be her undoing. Specialism, now a necessity, has fragmented the specialities themselves in a way that makes the outlook hazardous. The workers lose all sense of proportion in a maze of minutiae.

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

Acquire the art of detachment, the virtue of method, and the quality of thoroughness, but above all the grace of humility.