Harvey Cushing

“A physician is obligated to consider more than a diseased organ, more than even the whole man - he must view the man in his world.”

“I should like to see the day when somebody would be appointed surgeon somewhere who had no hands, for the operative part is the least part of the work.”

“The surgeon of the future will be more of a physician, and the physician of the future will be more of a surgeon.”

“A surgeon's life is a constant battle against disease and death, a battle he must often fight alone.”

“The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and intransigent forms is a thing beside which the digestive capacities of the ostrich are not worth mentioning.”

“There is only one ultimate and effectual preventative for the maladies to which flesh is heir, and that is death.”

“Difficulties are opportunities.”

“The only way to learn a new surgical technique is to leave town for a week.”

“The history of medicine is, in fact, the history of humanity itself, with all its ups and downs, its triumphs and its failures.”