“The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.”

Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.

We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.

A great man’s greatest good luck is to die at the right time.

The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.

All leaders strive to turn their followers into children.

Death has but one terror, that it has no tomorrow.

The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody.

A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.

The trouble is not chiefly that our universities are unfit for students but that many present-day students are unfit for universities.

Those who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind.

Far more critical than what we know or what we don’t know is what we don’t want to know.

For many people, an excuse is better than an achievement because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove yourself again in the future; but an excuse can last for life.

To learn you need a certain degree of confidence, not too much and not too little. If you have too little confidence, you will think you can’t learn. If you have too much, you will think you don’t have to learn.

The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.

We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.

It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.

My doctor told me I would never walk again. My mother told me I would. I believed my mother.

Let nothing which can be treated by diet be treated by other means.

It is well known among physicians that the best of the nourishing foods is the one that the Moslem religion forbids, i.e., Wine. It contains much good and light nourishment. It is rapidly digested and helps to digest other foods.

The physician should not treat the disease but the patient who is suffering from it

If I had my way everyone would have a psychiatrist. When the brain is sick and you must throw up, you do it by being purged in a psychiatrist’s office.

Time is generally the best doctor.

When I was little, I wanted to be a plastic surgeon.

Just being a Negro doesn’t qualify you to understand the race situation any more than being sick makes you an expert on medicine.