Here are some quotes pertaining to the subjects in my novel series. Most are from the Medieval and Renaissance periods, but some date to earlier. The medical quotes cover all periods in history, as my main character, Jean Duchesne, is a healer whose "sixth sense" encompasses more than the history up to his time! This is an ongoing project. Most of my short quotes are also on Twitter. Enjoy!
"Medical treatments which do not use the patient's own defenses are both costly and ineffective." Dr. Rajko Medenica
"The Arts are learnt by reason and method; they are mastered by practice." Leon Battista Alberti
"Buildings have been made because of man." Leon Battista Alberti
"The function of the painter is to render... the visible surface so that at a certain distance... and position it appears... like the body itself." Leon Battista Alberti
"We must always take what we paint from nature and always choose from it the most beautiful things." Leon Battista Alberti
"It is very rarely granted even to Nature herself to produce anything absolutely perfect in every part." Leon Battista Alberti
"A common error of ignorance is to maintain that what one does not know does not exist." Leon Battista Alberti
"I have taken pride in others, never in myself." Petrarch
"Mere elegance of language can produce at best but an empty renown." Petrarch
"Patients do resemble each other but they are completely different in their demeanor and immune reactions." Dr. Rajko Medenica
"If we as physicians fail to use the patient's own immune response, including trying to modify his immune state, then we have not sufficiently helped the patient." Dr. Rajko Medenica
"A general rule: The right diagnosis, the right dose of medication, and the right moment to administer treatment." Dr. Rajko Medenica
"The greater I am, the greater shall be my efforts." Petrarch
"There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen." Petrarch
"The ideas of things intellectually known pass into the substance of the intellect much more than do foods into the substance of the body." Marsilio Ficino
"Men are themselves the source of their own fortune and misfortune." Leon Battista Alberti
"As ability goes, so goes our fortune." Leon Battista Alberti
"Much is required of those who are happy, especially if they have needed comforting in the past, and have received it." Boccaccio
"Ruthless striving, overcomes everything." Petrarch
"Wanting is not enough, long and you attain it." Petrarch
"Hate I shall, if I can; if I can't, I shall love though not willing." Ovid
"The art has three factors, the disease, the patient, the physician. The physician is the servant of the art. The patient must cooperate with the physician in combatting the disease." Hippocrates
"He who wishes to be a surgeon should go to war." Hippocrates
"It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a Hospital that it should do no harm." Florence Nightingale
"Reason, you'll always be half-blind." Marguerite Porete
"People pretend not to like grapes when the vines are too high for them to reach." Marguerite de Navarre
"Only the hand that erases can write the true thing." Meister Eckhart
"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'thank you,' that would suffice." Meister Eckhart
"Be willing to be a beginner every single morning." Meister Eckhart
"Wisdom consists in doing the next thing you have to do, doing it with your whole heart, and finding delight in doing it." Meister Eckhart
"Run into peace." Meister Eckhart
"One must not always think so much about what one should do, but rather what one should be. Our works do not ennoble us; but we must ennoble our works."
Meister Eckhart
"Beware the man of one book." Thomas Aquinas
"There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship." Thomas Aquinas
"Wonder is the desire of knowledge." Thomas Aquinas
"Most men seem to live according to sense rather than reason." Thomas Aquinas
"Man has free choice, or otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards and punishments would be in vain. " Thomas Aquinas
"We can't have full knowledge all at once. We must start by believing; then afterwards we may be led on to master the evidence for ourselves." Thomas Aquinas
"Being too consumed in fear all the time will result in poor quality of life" Marie de France
"The more we have, the less we own." Meister Eckhart
"The outward man is the swinging door; the inner man is the still hinge." Meister Eckhart
"There exists only the present instant. ... a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday, nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence." Meister Eckhart
"Do exactly what you would do if you felt most secure." Meister Eckhart
"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'Thank You,' that would suffice." Meister Eckhart
"Only those who have dared to let go can dare to reenter." Meister Eckhart
"Love is the root of all joy and sorrow." Meister Eckhart
"Nothing is sharper than suffering, nothing is sweeter than to have suffered." Meister Eckhart
"An ignorant doctor is the aide-de-camp of death." Avicenna
"Width of life is more important than length of life." Avicenna
"What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good..." Martin Luther
"Justice is a temporary thing that must at last come to an end; but the conscience is eternal and will never die." Martin Luther
