This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"He who conceals his disease cannot expect to be cured." - Ethiopian Proverbs
"He who has got rid of the disease "Tomorrow" has the possibility to attain what he is here for." - George Gurdjieff, fully George Ivanovich Gurdjieff
"Infectious disease is one of the great tragedies of living things - the struggle for existence between two different forms of life... Incessantly, the pitiless war goes on, without quarter or armistice - a nationalism of species against species." - Hans Zinnser
"Environmental degradation is an iatrogenic disease induced by economic physicians who treat the basic malady of unlimited wants by prescribing unlimited growth.... Yet one certainly does not cure a treatment-induced disease by increasing the treatment dosage" - Herman E. Daly
"It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has. " - Hippocrates, fully known as Hippocrates of Cos or Hippokrates of Kos NULL
"It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form. " - Jerome K. Jerome, fully Jerome Klapka Jerome
"Disease and health, like circumstances, are rooted in thought... The people who live in fear of disease are the people who get it... Change of diet will not help a man who will not change his thoughts. When a man makes his thoughts pure, he no longer desires impure food... Clean thoughts make clean habits." - James Allen
"Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy. And yet being alive is no answer to the problems of living. To be or not to be is not the question. The vital question is: how to be and how not to be. The tendency to forget this vital question is the tragic disease of contemporary man, a disease that might prove fatal, that may end in disaster. The pray is to recollect passionately the perpetual urgency of this vital question." - Abraham Joshua Heschel
"Our community is in spiritual distress, and some of our organizations are often too concerned with digits. Our disease is a loss of character and commitment, and the cure of our plight cannot be derived from charts and diagrams." - Abraham Joshua Heschel
"When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease ... But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight." - John Maynard Keynes
"The vices operate like age, bring on disease before its time and in the prime of youth, leave the character broken and exhausted." - Junius, psyeudonym of unknown English Political Writer NULL
"The entire construct of the "medical model" of "mental illness"What is it but an analogy? Between physical medicine and psychiatry: the mind is said to be subject to disease in the same manner as the body. But whereas in physical medicine there are verifiable physiological proofs—in damaged or affected tissue, bacteria, inflammation, cellular irregularity—in mental illness alleged socially unacceptable behavior is taken as a symptom, even as proof, of pathology." - Kate Millet, Katherine Murray Millett
"Whether our task is fighting poverty, stemming the spread of disease or saving innocent lives from mass murder, we have seen that we cannot succeed without the leadership of the strong and the engagement of all" - Kofi Annan, fully Kofi Atta Annan
"Six Declines of Modern Youth: Decline of Fitness due to modern methods of locomotion [moving about];Decline of Initiative and Enterprise due to the widespread disease of spectatoritis; Decline of Memory and Imagination due to the confused restlessness of modern life; Decline of Skill and Care due to the weakened tradition of craftsmanship; Decline of Self-discipline due to the ever-present availability of stimulants and tranquilizers; And worst of all: Decline of Compassion due to the unseemly haste with which modern life is conducted or as William Temple called "spiritual death"." - Kurt Hahn, fully Kurt Martin "the rod" Hahn
"We know a great deal more about the causes of physical disease than we do about the causes of physical health." - M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
"Old age is not a disease - it is strength and survivorship, triumph over all kinds of vicissitudes and disappointments, trials and illnesses." - Maggie Kuhn
"No disease that can be treated by diet should be treated with any other means." - Maimonides, given name Moses ben Maimon or Moshe ben Maimon, known as "Rambam" NULL
"The soul is subject to health and disease, just as is the body. The health and disease of both... undoubtedly depend upon beliefs and customs, which are peculiar to mankind." - Maimonides, given name Moses ben Maimon or Moshe ben Maimon, known as "Rambam" NULL
"The physician should not treat the disease but the patient who is suffering from it." - Maimonides, given name Moses ben Maimon or Moshe ben Maimon, known as "Rambam" NULL
"Anti-Semitism is a horrible disease from which nobody is immune, and it has a kind of evil fascination that makes an enlightened person draw near the source of infection, supposedly in a scientific spirit, but really to sniff the vapors and dally with the possibility." - Mary McCarthy
"We classify disease as error, which nothing but Truth or Mind can heal." - Mary Baker Eddy
"(there is) no other means of escaping from one's consciousness than to deny it, to look upon it as an organic disease of the terrestrial intelligence - a disease which we must endeavor to cure by an action which must appear to us an action of violent and willful madness, but which, on the other side of our appearances, is probably an action of health. ("Of Immortality")" -
"I contracted a disease which I have never shaken off. The disease was idealism. Because of it, I did the thing in life I wanted to do - Writing." - Max Ehrmann
"It is a space in which analogies define essences. The pictures resemble things, but they also resemble one another. The distance that separates one disease from another can be measured only by the degree of their resemblance, without reference to the logico-temporal divergence of genealogy." - Michel Foucault
"In the medicine of species, disease has, as a birthright, forms and seasons that are alien to the space of societies. There is a ‘savage’ nature of disease that is both its true nature and its most obedient course: alone, free of intervention, without medical artifice, it reveals the ordered, almost vegetal nervure of its essence." - Michel Foucault
"The president of the National Education Association was once asked when his union was going to do something about students. He replied that when the students became members of the union, the union would take care of them. And that was a correct answer. Why? His responsibility as president of the NEA was to serve the members of his union, not to serve public purposes. I give him credit: The trade union has been very effective in serving its members. However, in the process, they've destroyed American education. But you see, education isn't the union's function. It's our fault for allowing the union to pursue its agenda. Consider this fact: There are two areas in the United States that suffer from the same disease—education is one and health care is the other. They both suffer from the disease that takes a system that should be bottom-up and converts it into a system that is top-down. Education is a simple case. It isn't the public purpose to build brick schools and have students taught there. The public purpose is to provide education. Think of it this way: If you want to subsidize the production of a product, there are two ways you can do it. You can subsidize the producer or you can subsidize the consumer. In education, we subsidize the producer—the school. If you subsidize the student instead—the consumer—you will have competition. The student could choose the school he attends and that would force schools to improve and to meet the demands of their students." - Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman
"The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty -- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God." - Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu NULL
"Do not cause hurt to the hearts of others Dispel the disease in your heart Which desires to hurt. Great benefit will come to you And bring peace into your life." - Bawa Mahaiyadden, fully Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
"Anger (being hostile) is a quality which to some, is like a religion. How can we kill it? It can only be killed by a sharpened intellect (koorvaputhi). Anger is like an elephant, - heavy, burdensome, which obliterates everything on its path, and cannot be killed easily. A very sharp intellect is the only weapon with which you can kill it. In folklore, it is said that if you are able to kill it, you are likened to a 'dev muni' (a petty god in tamil folklore). To us, it means that one could realise the Truth (Haqq) which is Allah. Further we have arrogance, which is the "I" in me, and everything else that is associated with the "I". It is also said in Tamil folklore, that so long as the pride and arrogance remains as the "I" in me, they will slaughter me. That "I" consciousness will unerringly drag my mind down to abysmal depths of degradation. Like a mote in your eye which affects your vision, it blocks the power of the mind. Whilst the arrogance of the "I" infects the mind, and whilst the greed of "mine" envelops the mind, then you are under the fatal stranglehold. Then your eyes are dazzled by the visions portrayed, and you succumb to that stranglehold. So the constant intention and inward prayer should be - "Oh Allah, the Almighty Power, let the arrogance that is "I", and the greed that is called "mine" be cast asunder, that I shall see Thee in all thy Majesty". That is the priceless effulgent Thing. That is why we always say, annihilate the "I", because that is the cause of your disease of misery, (thoonbam). Your pride, your arrogance, your greed, your lust, your attachments, all have the "I", your base ego being the generator. The idea of "I" and "mine" permeates your entire being and taints your every thought and action, your conduct and behaviour. Therefore, if and when you come to possess the knowledge to cross this abyss of the "I" and "mine" then that knowledge you must have before you can pursue your religion, whatever it may be." - Bawa Mahaiyadden, fully Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
"Capitalism is a social cancer. It has always been a social cancer. It is the disease of society. It is the malignancy of society." - Murray Bookchin
"In my lifetime, I have seen changes in the Indian world that are nearly unimaginable. At the turn of the 20th century, the Indian was literally headed for extinction. The death rate exceeded the birth rate, poverty and disease were pervasive, the prospects for survival--let alone a better life--were bleak. At the turn of the century, the Indian has not only survived , indeed he--and she--has become a viable, even necessary, factor in the life of the nation and of the world." - N. Scott Momaday, fully Navarre Scott Momaday
"People want to find a meaning in everything and everyone. That's the disease of our age. " - Pablo Picasso, fully Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso
"Once a disease has entered the body, all parts which are healthy must fight it: not one alone, but all. Because a disease might mean their common death. Nature knows this; and Nature attacks the disease with whatever help she can muster." - Paracelsus, aka 'Paracelsus the Great', born Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim NULL
"We know from our clinical experience in the practice of medicine that in diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment, the individual and his background of heredity are just as important, if not more so, as the disease itself." - Paul Dudley White
"Love is a disease no one wants to get rid of. Those who catch it never try to get better, and those who suffer do not wish to be cured… Love is a force that will never be subdued. If we try to control it, love will destroy us. If we try to keep it, love will enslave us. If we try to understand it, love will leave us in confusion… Love is a trap. When it appears, we see only its light, not its shadows… Love is always new. No matter that we love one, two, ten times in life we are always faced with a situation we do not know. Love can take us to hell or to paradise, but always leads somewhere. We must accept it, as is the food of our existence. If we are negative we, seeing starve the tree branches laden life, without courage to reach out and pick fruit. It is necessary to find love where you are, even if that means hours, days, weeks of disappointment and sadness. Because the moment we left in search of love, love comes to us also. And save us. " - Paulo Coelho
"Check disease in its approach. " - Periander, aka Periander The Great NULL
"Check disease in its approach." - Persius, fully Aulus Persius Flaccus NULL
"For many, negative thinking is a habit, which over time, becomes an addiction... A lot of people suffer from this disease because negative thinking is addictive to each of the Big Three -- the mind, the body, and the emotions. If one doesn't get you, the others are waiting in the wings." - Peter McWilliams, fully Peter Alexander McWilliams
"The diagnosis of disease is often easy, often difficult, and often impossible." - Peter Mere Latham
"I believe that if we stop to think, it is clear that our very survival, even today, depends upon the acts and kindness of so many people. Right from the moment of our birth, we are under the care and kindness of our parents; later in life, when facing the sufferings of disease and old age, we are again dependent on the kindness of others." - Piero Ferrucci
"Against the disease of writing one must take special precautions, since it is a dangerous and contagious disease." - Pierre Abelard, aka Abailard or Abaelard or Habalaarz
"And as in men's bodies, so in government, that disease is most serious which proceeds from the head." - Pliny the Younger, full name Casus Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo NULL
"It would be simplistic to say that Divine Providence caused the fall of Communism. In a certain sense Communism as a system fell by itself. It fell as a consequence of its own mistakes and abuses. It proved to be a medicine more dangerous than the disease itself. It did not bring about true social reform, yet it did become a powerful threat and challenge to the entire world. But it fell by itself, because of its own inherent weakness." - Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL
"If men were equally at risk from this condition -- if they knew their bellies might swell as if they were suffering from end-stage cirrhosis, that they would have to go nearly a year without a stiff drink, a cigarette, or even an aspirin, that they would be subject to fainting spells and unable to fight their way onto commuter trains -- then I am sure that pregnancy would be classified as a sexually transmitted disease and abortions would be no more controversial than emergency appendectomies. " - Barbara Ehrenreich, born Barbara Alexander
"Sadism is not an infectious disease that strikes a person all of a sudden. It has a long prehistory in childhood and always originates in the desperate fantasies of a child who is searching for a way out of a hopeless situation. " - Alice Miller, née Rostovski
"In spite of all humans' innate interest in the interrelatedness of all experience, long ago these world-power-structure builders learned to shunt all the bright intellectuals and the physically creative into specialist careers. The powerful reserved for themselves the far easier, because innate, comprehensive functioning. All one needs to do is to discover how self-perpetuating is this disease of specialization is to witness the inter-departmental battling for educational funds and the concomitant jealous guarding of the various specializations assigned to a department's salaried experts on each subject in any university." - Buckminster Fuller, fully Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller
"The source of my suffering and loneliness is deep in my heart. This is a disease no doctor can cure. Only Union with the Friend can cure it. Your hope in my heart is the rarest treasure Your Name on my tongue is the sweetest word My choicest hours Are the hours I spend with You – O God, I can’t live in this world Without remembering You– How can I endure the next world Without seeing Your face? I am a stranger in Your country And lonely among Your worshippers: This is the substance of my complaint. " - Rābiʻa al-ʻAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya, aka Rabi'a of Basra or Basri, Saint Rabia of Basra