Martin H. Fischer
(1879 - 1962)

German-American physician and writer.

Science Quotes by Martin H. Fischer (104)

A conclusion is the place where you got tired thinking.
— Martin H. Fischer
In Charlie Walker, My Few Wise Words of Wisdom (200), 151.
See also:  |  Conclusion (24)  |  Publication (60)  |  Tired (2)

A doctor must work eighteen hours a day and seven days a week. If you cannot console yourself to this, get out of the profession
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Physician (138)  |  Work (42)

A doctor whose breath smells has no right to medical opinion.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Breath (7)  |  Opinion (36)  |  Physician (138)

A living civilization creates; a dying, builds museums.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Civilization (42)  |  Museum (7)

A machine has value only as it produces more than it consumes - so check your value to the community.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Community (11)  |  Consumption (3)  |  Machine (22)  |  Production (10)

A man may be born a jackass; but it is his business if he makes himself a double one.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Idiot (3)

A man who cannot work without his hypodermic needle is a poor doctor. The amount of narcotic you use is inversely proportional to your skill.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Drug (19)  |  Physician (138)  |  Skill (9)

A nickel's worth of goulash beats a five dollar can of vitamins.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Food (36)  |  Health (61)  |  Vitamin (5)

All the world is a laboratory to the inquiring mind.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Enquiry (58)  |  Laboratory (36)

Any man who does not make himself proficient in at least two languages other than his own is a fool.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Education (118)  |  Fool (11)  |  Language (38)

Bacteria keeps us from heaven and puts us there.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Bacteria (12)

Diagnosis is not the end, but the beginning of practice.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Diagnosis (45)  |  Treatment (33)

Disease is somatic; the suffering from it, psychic.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Disease (115)  |  Suffer (2)

Don't confuse hypothesis and theory. The former is a possible explanation; the latter, the correct one. The establishment of theory is the very purpose of science.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Explanation (20)  |  Hypothesis (83)  |  Science (444)  |  Theory (179)

Don't despise empiric truth. Lots of things work in practice for which the laboratory has never found proof.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Empiricism (7)  |  Laboratory (36)  |  Proof (59)  |  Truth (241)

Don't forget that the flavors of wine and cheese depend upon the types of infecting microorganisms.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Bacteria (12)  |  Cheese (3)  |  Microorganism (17)  |  Wine (5)

Education aims to give you a boost up the ladder of knowledge. Too often, it just gives you a cramp on one of its rungs.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Education (118)  |  Knowledge (330)

Education is the process of driving a set of prejudices down your throat.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Education (118)  |  Prejudice (10)

Education should be exercise; it has become massage.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Education (118)  |  Exercise (15)

Expect an early death - it will keep you busier.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Death (91)

Facts are not science - as the dictionary is not literature.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Dictionary (4)  |  Fact (139)  |  Literature (10)  |  Science (444)

First need in the reform of hospital management? That's easy! The death of all dietitians, and the resurrection of a French chef.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Hospital (15)  |  Reform (5)

Follow Descartes! Do not give up the religion of your youth until you get a better one.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  René Descartes (27)  |  Religion (68)  |  Youth (13)

God's interest in the human race is nowhere better evinced than in obstetrics.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  God (121)  |  Human Race (13)

Half the modern drugs could well be thrown out the window except that the birds might eat them
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).

Here's good advice for practice: go into partnership with nature; she does more than half the work and asks none of the fee.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Money (69)  |  Nature (243)  |  Treatment (33)  |  Work (42)

Hitler destroyed the German university with design; we destroyed ours without.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Design (12)  |  Education (118)  |  Adolf Hitler (8)  |  University (12)

Hormones, vitamines, stimulants and depressives are oils upon the creaky machinery of life. Principal item, however, is the machinery.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Depression (3)  |  Hormone (3)  |  Life (155)  |  Machinery (5)  |  Vitamin (5)

I find four great classes of students: The dumb who stay dumb. The dumb who become wise. The wise who go dumb. The wise who remain wise.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Student (17)  |  Wise (3)

I find that most men would rather have their bellies opened for five hundred dollars than have a tooth pulled for five.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Belly (2)  |  Dentist (2)  |  Operation (12)  |  Surgery (20)  |  Tooth (3)

If you are physically sick, you can elicit the interest of a battery of physicians; but if you are mentally sick, you are lucky if the janitor comes around.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Disease (115)  |  Mental Health (2)  |  Physician (138)

If you do not agree with the prevalent point of view, be ready to explain why.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Agreement (5)  |  Explanation (20)

If you don't know what's meant by God, watch a forsythia branch or a lettuce leaf sprout.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  God (121)  |  Nature (243)

In diagnosis, think of the easy first.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Diagnosis (45)  |  Easy (5)

In the end, poverty, putridity and pestilence; work, wealth and worry; health, happiness and hell, all simmer down into village problems.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Happiness (26)  |  Health (61)  |  Hell (5)  |  Money (69)  |  Pestilence (3)  |  Poverty (8)  |  Problem (63)  |  Work (42)

In the sick room, ten cents' worth of human understanding equals ten dollars' worth of medical science.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Hospital (15)  |  Medicine (127)  |  Treatment (33)  |  Understanding (94)

It is not hard to learn more. What is hard is to unlearn when you discover yourself wrong
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Correction (8)  |  Error (97)  |  Learn (11)

Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Fact (139)  |  Knowledge (330)  |  Simplification (3)  |  Wisdom (43)

Life goes faster on protein.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Life (155)  |  Protein (19)

Life has been reduced to getting food out of cans.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Food (36)  |  Life (155)

Life is a ticket to the greatest show on earth.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Life (155)

Man embraces in his makeup all the natural orders; he's a squid, a mollusk, a sucker and a buzzard; sometimes he's a cerebrate.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Man (112)

Many a diabetic has stayed alive by stealing the bread denied him by his doctor.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Diabetes (3)  |  Physician (138)  |  Treatment (33)

Medicine is the one place where all the show is stripped of the human drama. You, as doctors, will be in a position to see the human race stark naked—not only physically, but mentally and morally as well.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Medicine (127)  |  Naked (2)

Minorities are the stars of the firmament; majorities, the darkness in which they float.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Majority (6)  |  Minority (3)

None of the great discoveries was made by a 'specialist' or a 'researcher'.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Discovery (166)  |  Research (208)  |  Specialist (5)

Nowadays the clinical history too often weighs more than the man.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Diagnosis (45)  |  History (61)  |  Treatment (33)

Of all the supervised conditions for life offered man, those under U.S.A.'s constitution have proved the best. Wherefore, be sure when you start modifying, corrupting or abrogating it.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Constitution of the United States (7)

On J-Day our profession will have a lot to answer for! We might at least have withheld our hands instead of making them work against God.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Physician (138)

Only one rule in medical ethics need concern you - that action on your part which best conserves the interests of your patient.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Ethics (16)  |  Patient (32)  |  Treatment (33)

Our moral theorists seem never content with the normal. Why must it always be a contest between fornication, obesity and laziness, and celibacy, fasting and hard labor?
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Ethics (16)  |  Normal (4)  |  Obesity (4)  |  Work (42)

Our profession is the only one which works unceasingly to annihilate itself.
— Martin H. Fischer

Physiological response to thinking and to pain is the same; and man is not given to hurting himself.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Pain (30)  |  Physiology (28)  |  Thought (65)

Physiology is the stepchild of medicine. That is why Cinderella often turns out the queen.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Physiology (28)

Prize fighters can sometimes read and write when they start - but they can't when they finish.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Injury (3)  |  Read (10)  |  Write (11)

Psychology is physiology above the collar button.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Brain (58)  |  Physiology (28)  |  Psychology (53)

Reflexes and instincts are not pretty. It is their decoration that initiates art.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Instinct (13)  |  Reflex (4)

Research has been called good business, a necessity, a gamble, a game. It is none of these—it's a state of mind.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Game (7)  |  Mind (116)  |  Research (208)

Research is the name given the crystal formed when the night's worry is added to the day's sweat.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Research (208)  |  Work (42)  |  Worry (3)

Sin is commitable in thought, word or deed; so is virtue.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Sin (5)  |  Thought (65)  |  Virtue (5)  |  Word (31)

Social reform aims to improve the condition of the poor by worsening the condition of the rich.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Poverty (8)  |  Reform (5)  |  Rich (3)  |  Wealth (6)

Some day when you have time, look into the business of prayer, amulets, baths, and poultices, and discover much valuable therapy the profession has cast on the dump
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Prayer (2)  |  Therapy (8)

Sweat silently. Let's have no squawking about a little expenditure of energy.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Energy (38)  |  Sweat (2)

Take a man out of the trenches, make him a straw boss, and he develops a belly.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Belly (2)

The American is a gentle guy; but don't pressure him; if you do he turns toad and squirts poison.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  American (2)  |  Poison (17)  |  Toad (2)

The analysis of man discloses three chemical elements - a job, a meal and a woman.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Analysis (37)  |  Element (19)  |  Food (36)  |  Man (112)  |  Woman (18)

The breakfast slimes, angel food cake, doughnuts and coffee, white bread and gravy cannot build an enduring nation."
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Bread (5)  |  Breakfast (2)  |  Coffee (4)  |  Nation (15)

The first attribute that characterizes the greater man from the moron is his thicker layer of inhibition."
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Inhibition (4)  |  Man (112)

The great doctors all got their education off dirt pavements and poverty—not marble floors and foundations.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Education (118)  |  Physician (138)  |  Poverty (8)  |  Wealth (6)

The great men of science are supreme artists.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Artist (7)  |  Men Of Science (68)

The inertia hardest to overcome is that of perfectly good seconds.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Inertia (4)

The inventor of soda crackers has a place in hell.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Hell (5)  |  Inventor (15)

The judicial mind is too commonly characterized by a regard for a fourth decimal as the equal of a whole number.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Decimal (5)  |  Mind (116)  |  Number (45)

The natural philosophers are mostly gone. We modern scientists are adding too many decimals.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Decimal (5)  |  Philosopher (33)  |  Scientist (71)

The new appears as a minority point of view, and hence is unpopular. The function of a university is to give it a sanctuary.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Minority (3)  |  New (7)  |  University (12)

The only equipment lack in the modern hospital? Somebody to meet you at the entrance with a handshake!
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Equipment (3)  |  Greeting (2)  |  Hospital (15)

The only man we have any respect for, is he who uses all the endowment he has, and uses it until he bleeds.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Hemorrhage (2)  |  Man (112)  |  Respect (7)

The patient does not care about your science; what he wants to know is, can you cure him?
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Cure (24)  |  Medicine (127)  |  Patient (32)

The practice of medicine is a thinker's art, the practice of surgery a plumber's.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Medicine (127)  |  Plumber (3)  |  Surgery (20)

The public blabbers about preventative medicine, but will neither appreciate nor pay for it. You get paid for what you cure.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Cure (24)  |  Medicine (127)  |  Prevention (6)

The public is hedged about by so many goddam bookkeepers that no time is left in which to produce. More time is spent in carrying out garbage than in carrying in food.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Food (36)  |  Garbage (2)  |  Production (10)

The refuge of the morally, intellectually, artistically and economically bankrupt is war.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Ethics (16)  |  Intellect (47)  |  War (51)

The self-appointed spokesmen for God incline to shout; He, Himself, speaks only in whispers.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  God (121)

The specialist is a man who fears the other subjects.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Fear (24)  |  Specialist (5)

The tears of the red, yellow, black, brown and white man are all the same.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Minority (3)  |  Tear (3)

The thoughts of Plato and Machiavelli... don't seem quite enough armor for a world beset with splitting the atoms, urban guerrillas, nineteen varieties of psychotherapists, amplified guitars, napalm, computers, astronauts, and an atmosphere polluted simultaneously with auto exhaust and TV commercials.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Astronaut (9)  |  Atmosphere (18)  |  Atom (85)  |  Automobile (2)  |  Commercial (3)  |  Computer (24)  |  Nuclear Energy (2)  |  Plato (15)  |  Pollution (5)

The world is your school.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Education (118)  |  School (17)  |  World (45)

There is no substitute for mother's milk.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Milk (3)  |  Mother (10)  |  Substitute (4)

There is only one reason why men become addicted to drugs, they are weak me. Only strong men are cured, and they cure themselves.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Cure (24)

Truth is rarely writ in ink; it lives in nature.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Ink (2)  |  Nature (243)  |  Truth (241)

We are all parasites; we humans, the greatest.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Human (37)  |  Parasite (12)

We humans are the greatest of earth's parasites
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Human (37)  |  Parasite (12)

We starve the rats, creosote the ticks, swat the flies, step on the cockroaches and poison the scales. Yet when these pests appear in human form we go paralytic.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Cockroach (2)  |  Fly (9)  |  Human (37)  |  Poison (17)  |  Rat (8)  |  Tick (2)

What this country needs is radicals who will stay that way regardless of the creeping years.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Radical (5)

When a man lacks mental balance in pneumonia he is said to be delirious. When he lacks mental balance without the pneumonia, he is pronounced insane by all smart doctors.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Diagnosis (45)  |  Mental Health (2)  |  Physician (138)  |  Pneumonia (2)

When there is no explanation, then give it a name, which immediately explains everything
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Explanation (20)  |  Nomenclature (51)

When you no longer know what headache, heartache, or stomachache means without cistern punctures, electrocardiograms and six x-ray plates, you are slipping.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  X-ray (6)

Whenever ideas fail, men invent words.
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Idea (83)  |  Invention (84)  |  Word (31)

Why should moral distinction be made between death by the spirochete and death by the streptococcus?
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Death (91)

You make me sick! You are offered meat and you choose a banana-split-with-nuts.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Food (36)  |  Health (61)  |  Meat (2)

You must learn to talk clearly. The jargon of scientific terminology which rolls off your tongues is mental garbage
— Martin H. Fischer
Martin H. Fischer, Howard Fabing (ed.) and Ray Marr (ed.), Fischerisms (1944).
See also:  |  Clarity (2)  |  Garbage (2)  |  Jargon (2)  |  Nomenclature (51)  |  Talk (6)

You're no good unless you are a good assistant; and if you are, you're too good to be an assistant.
— Martin H. Fischer

Your mind works very simply: you are either trying to find out what are God's laws in order to follow them; or you are trying to outsmart Him.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  God (121)  |  Mind (116)

Youth disserves; middle age conserves; old age preserves.
— Martin H. Fischer
See also:  |  Middle Age (2)  |  Old Age (10)  |  Preserve (3)  |  Youth (13)


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