Medicine has been investigating the diseases we humans suffer from for centuries to try to prevent and cure them with increasingly effective vaccines and treatments. In fact, diseases that ravaged entire continents in the past, such as the Black Death, which left Europe with less than half its population.

With successive scientific advances, many diseases have been able to find a cure or effective treatment, which has led to a significant increase in life expectancy over the last century.

Medicine Phrases (and Aphorisms)

Hundreds of doctors and researchers have left us an unparalleled legacy. To pay tribute to this profession, we have prepared a selection of the best phrases in Medicine spoken by doctors and researchers of all times.

1. The good doctor treats the disease; the great doctor treats the patient who has the disease. (William Osler)

Great famous phrase, perhaps one of the most reproduced, that shows us the way to be a professional doctor.

2. Time is usually the best doctor. (Ovid)

The Roman poet, in a reflection on the healing properties of letting time pass.

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

Every patient is a different story, and the effectiveness of medicine is based on statistical study.

4. Medication is not always necessary. Belief in recovery always is. (Norman Cousins)

On pharmacology, sometimes overdone.

5. Where medicine doesn’t reach, no one can. But hope can be therapeutic. (Francis Castel)

Being in a positive mood is vital.

6. Looking for a doctor without the will to cure yourself is like trying to fish in a puddle. (Juan Armando Corbin)

Reflection on the importance of wanting to survive.

7. Patience is the best medicine. (John Florio)

A quality that pushes us to heal our body and mind.

8. Stem cell research can revolutionize medicine, more so than anything else since the advent of antibiotics. (Ron Reagan)

About the budding scientific and medical revolution.

9. Let your food be your only medicine. (Hippocrates)

A good nutritional foundation is key to keeping our health in top shape.

10. The art of medicine is to keep the patient in a good mood while nature heals him. (Voltaire)

Humility and perseverance; that’s what medicine is based on.

11. Work! If you don’t need it for food, you need it for medicine. (William Penn)

Work is dignified, and perhaps even curable.

12. The best doctor is the one who knows the uselessness of most medicines. (Benjamin Franklin)

Curious reflection on the part of one of the founders of the United States.

13. Everything is possible,” he had said. We are not gods, we do not know everything. -And he had added: “The deep coma is a mystery to medicine. (Marc Levy)

It is certainly a state of which little is known.

14. Science and medicine deal with the body, while philosophy deals with the mind and soul, as necessary to a physician as food and air. (Noah Gordon)

Excerpt from the book The Doctor.

15. There is only one medicine, and it is effective when you have scientific evidence behind it. (J.M. Mulet)

Medical phrase of the Spanish researcher and lecturer.

16. Medicine is the art of disputing men to the death of today, to give them a better condition, a little later. (Noel Clarasó)

An ironic reflection on what is to come.

17. More is done for medicine by those who seek it than by those who conclude it. (Mastretta Angels)

On the scientific spirit that should underpin medical activity.

18. It would be great if the doctor had the possibility to experiment in himself with different medicines. He would understand the action of the medicines in a very different way. (Mikhail Bulgakov)

A critical view on pharmacology.

19. I consider medicine a priesthood, like being a spiritual shepherd. Asking money from a sick person to heal him is a bit like saying: the bag or the life. (Patrick Deville)

About the infamous health system in some countries, such as the United States.

20. Words are a medicine for the suffering soul. (Aeschylus)

A friend or family member who takes care of us is always comfortable and helps us to recover.

21. Medicine is the art of accompanying the tomb with Greek words. (Enrique Poncela)

A great, ironic medical phrase.

22. Medicine is the art of preserving health and eventually curing disease in the body. (Avicenna)

Prevention before cure.

23. I die because of the help of too many doctors. (Alexander the Great)

Too many cures can be stressful and lead to poorer health.

24. Medicine has prolonged our lives, but we have not lacked a good reason to continue living. (Miguel Delibes)

A great reflection of the Spanish writer.

25. Doctors like beer, the older the better. (Thomas Fuller)

Experience gives them wisdom.

26. Doctors cut, burn, torture. And by doing the sick a good, which seems more like a bad, they demand a reward that they hardly deserve. (Heraclitus)

Great line of medicine that comes to us from Ancient Greece.

27. Who decides when doctors disagree? (Alexander Pope)

A mystery hidden in the backrooms of hospitals.

28. Almost all doctors have their favorite diseases. (Henry Fielding)

Like any professional, there are some things that interest them more than others.

29. Doctors kill and live by killing, and the complaint falls on the ailment. (Francisco de Quevedo)

An openly negative view of the medical profession.

30. The progress of medicine brings us to the end of that liberal era in which man could still die of what he wanted. (Stanislaw Jerzy Lec)

Reflection on the development of this applied science.

31. Doctors are not for that; their mission is to prescribe and to collect; whether or not the patient is cured is up to him. (Molière)

Another criticism of health professionals.

32. The best medicine is always a joyful spirit. (Solomon)

Another medical phrase that emphasizes the importance of positive encouragement.

33. When a medicine does not harm, we should be happy and not demand that it also serves a purpose. (Pierre Augustin de Beaumarchais)

A sceptical view of the therapeutic properties of medicine.

34. Wizards can achieve more through faith than doctors can through truth. (Giordano Bruno)

The Italian philosopher and poet didn’t trust medicine much either.

35. Medicine can only cure curable diseases. (Chinese proverb)

Miracles, unfortunately, do not exist.

36. Medicine heals, nature heals. (Latin proverb)

A valuable and useful distinction to improve our life.