In a 1852 letter, Nightingale records the opinion of a young surgeon:
The account he gives of nurses beats everything that even I know of. This young prophet says that they are all drunkards, without exception, Sisters and all, and that there are but two whom the surgeon can trust to give the patients their medicines.

A doctor who doesn't say too many foolish things is a patient half-cured. (1921)

Before you tell the ‘truth’ to the patient, be sure you know the ‘truth’ and that the patient wants to hear it.

Break the chains of your prejudices and take up the torch of experience, and you will honour nature in the way she deserves, instead of drawing derogatory conclusions from the ignorance in which she has left you. Simply open your eyes and ignore what you cannot understand, and you will see that a labourer whose mind and knowledge extend no further than the edges of his furrow is no different essentially from the greatest genius, as would have been proved by dissecting the brains of Descartes and Newton; you will be convinced that the imbecile or the idiot are animals in human form, in the same way as the clever ape is a little man in another form; and that, since everything depends absolutely on differences in organisation, a well-constructed animal who has learnt astronomy can predict an eclipse, as he can predict recovery or death when his genius and good eyesight have benefited from some time at the school of Hippocrates and at patients' bedsides.

Dermatology is the best specialty. The patient never dies and never gets well.

If three simple questions and one well chosen laboratory test lead to an unambiguous diagnosis, why harry the patient with more?

If you are too fond of new remedies, first you will not cure your patients; secondly, you will have no patients to cure.

In the first papers concerning the aetiology of tuberculosis I have already indicated the dangers arising from the spread of the bacilli-containing excretions of consumptives, and have urged moreover that prophylactic measures should be taken against the contagious disease. But my words have been unheeded. It was still too early, and because of this they still could not meet with full understanding. It shared the fate of so many similar cases in medicine, where a long time has also been necessary before old prejudices were overcome and the new facts were acknowledged to be correct by the physicians.

It is a curious and painful fact that almost all the completely futile treatments that have been believed in during the long history of medical folly have been such as caused acute suffering to the patient. When anesthetics were discovered, pious people considered them an attempt to evade the will of God. It was pointed out, however, that when God extracted Adam's rib He put him into a deep sleep. This proved that anesthetics are all right for men; women, however, ought to suffer, because of the curse of Eve.

It is no part of a physician's business to use either persuasion or compulsion upon the patients.

It is not what disease the patient has but which patient has the disease.

It is the unqualified result of all my experience with the sick that, second only to their need of fresh air, is their need of light; that, after a close room, what hurts them most is a dark room and that it is not only light but direct sunlight they want.

It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a Hospital that it should do the sick no harm.

Let the young know they will never find a more interesting, more instructive book than the patient himself.

Life is short, the Art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult. The physician must be ready, not only to do his duty himself, but also to secure the co-operation of the patient, of the attendants and of externals.

My friend was sick: I attended him.
He died; I dissected him.

Neurosis has an abosolute genius for malingering. There is no illness which cannot counterfeit perfectly … If it is capable of deceiving the doctor, how should it fail to deceive the patient.

Only one rule in medical ethics need concern you - that action on your part which best conserves the interests of your patient.

Palliative care should be an integral part of cancer care and not be associated exclusively with terminal care. Many patients need it early in the course of their disease.

Patients and their families will forgive you for wrong diagnoses, but will rarely forgive you for wrong prognoses; the older you grow in medicine, the more chary you get about offering iron clad prognoses, good or bad.

Somewhere between 1900 and 1912 in this country, according to one sober medical scientist [Henderson] a random patient, with a random disease, consulting a doctor chosen at random had, for the first time in the history of mankind, a better than fifty-fifty chance of profiting from the encounter.

The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.

The best patient is a millionaire with a positive Wassermann [antibody test for syphilis]. In Carl Malmberg , 140 Million Patients (1947), 30. Medical proverb before the discovery of antibiotics.

The only English patients I have ever known refuse tea, have been typhus cases; and the first sign of their getting better was their craving again for tea.

The only weapon with which the unconscious patient can immediately retaliate upon the incompetent surgeon is hemorrhage.

The patient does not care about your science; what he wants to know is, can you cure him?

The patient has two sleeves, one containing a diagnostic and the other a therapeutic armamentarium; these sleeves should rarely be emptied in one move; keep some techniques in reserve; time your manoeuvres to best serve the status and special needs of your patient.

The principles of medical management are essentially the same for individuals of all ages, albeit the same problem is handled differently in different patients. ... [just as] the principles of driving an automobile are uniform, but one drives in one manner on the New Jersey Turnpike and in another manner on a narrow, winding road in the Rocky Mountains.

Too often a sister puts all her patients back to bed as a housewife puts all her plates back in the plate-rack—to make a generally tidy appearance.

When he can render no further aid, the physician alone can mourn as a man with his incurable patient. This is the physician's sad lot.

When you see the natural and almost universal craving in English sick for their 'tea,' you cannot but feel that nature knows what she is about. ... [A] little tea or coffee restores them. ... [T]here is nothing yet discovered which is a substitute to the English patient for his cup of tea.

You Surgeons of London, who puzzle your Pates,
To ride in your Coaches, and purchase Estates,
Give over, for Shame, for your Pride has a Fall,
And ye Doctress of Epsom has outdone you all.

Dame Nature has given her a doctor's degree,
She gets all the patients and pockets the fee;
So if you don't instantly prove it a cheat,
She'll loll in a chariot whilst you walk the street.
Cautioning doctors about the quack bone-setter, Mrs. Mapp (d. 22 Dec 1737), who practiced in Epsom town once a week, arriving in a coach-and-four.