Robert Christy, comp. Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases of All Ages. 1887.
Doctor (Physician)
A broken apothecary a new doctor.
A disobedient patient makes an unfeeling physician.Publius Syrus.
A doctor is one who kills you to-day to prevent you from dying to-morrow.Punch.
A doctor’s child dies not from disease but from medicine.Tamil.
A half doctor near is better than a whole one far away.German.
A loquacious doctor is successful.Tamil.
A lucky physician is better than a learned one.German.
A multitude of physicians have destroyed me. (The Emperor Adrian directed these words to be inscribed on his tomb.)
A new doctor, a new grave digger.German.
A physician is a man who pours drugs of which he knows little into a body of which he knows less.Voltaire.
A physician is an angel when employed, but a devil when one must pay him.German.
A physician is but a consoler of the mind.Petronius Arbiter.
A wise physician is more than armies to the public weal.Pope.
A wise physician never despises a distemper however inconsiderable.Fielding.
A young physician should have three graveyards.German.
An honest physician leaves his patient when he can no longer contribute to his health.Temple.
An ignorant doctor is no better than a murderer.Chinese.
Better wait on the cook than the doctor.
Bleed him, purge him and if he dies bury him.Spanish, Dutch.
By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death will seize the doctor too.Shakespeare.
Do not dwell in a city whose governor is a physician.Hebrew.
Each physician thinks his pills the best.German.
Every man is a fool or a physician at forty.
Every one ought to be his own physician.Modern Greek.
Feed sparingly and defy the physician.
God healeth and the physician hath the thanks.
God is the restorer of health and the physician puts the fee in his pocket.Italian.
He who has suffered is the physician.Modern Greek.
Head cool, feet warm, make the doctor poor.German.
Herring in the land, the doctor at a stand.Dutch.
Honor a physician before thou hast need of him.
Hussars pray for war and the doctors for fever.German.
I die by the help of too many physicians.Alexander the Great.
If doctors fail thee be these three thy doctors: rest, cheerfulness and moderate diet.Latin.
If the doctor cures the sun sees it, but if he kills the earth hides it.Scotch.
If you have a friend who is a physician send him to the house of your enemy.Portuguese.
Little does the sick man consult his own interests who makes his physician his heir.Publius Syrus.
Many funerals discredit a physician.Ben Jonson.
Most physicians as they grow greater in skill grow less in their religion.Massinger.
Nature, time and patience are the three great physicians.
New doctor—new church-yard.German.
No good doctor ever takes physic.Italian.
No man is a good physician who has never been sick.Arabian.
No physician is better than three.German.
No physician takes pleasure in the health even of his best friend.Greek Comedian.
One physician is better than two but three are fatal. (Homœpathic globule.)Punch.
Physician, heal thyself.Italian, German.
Physicians alone are permitted to murder with impunity.Petrarch.
Physicians’ faults are covered with earth and rich men’s with money.
That city is in a bad case whose physician has the gout.Hebrew.
That patient is not like to recover who makes the doctor his heir.
The barber must be young and the physician old.German.
The best physicians are Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merryman.
The blunders of physicians are covered by the earth.Portuguese.
The disobedience of the patient makes the physician seem cruel.
The doctor is often more to be feared than the disease.French.
The doctor seldom takes physic.
The earth hides as it takes the physician’s mistakes.Spanish.
The first physicians by debauch were made,
Excess began and doth sustain the trade.Dryden.
The four best physicians, Dr. Sobriety, Dr. Jocosity, Dr. Quiet and Dr. Gold.German.
The physician can cure the sick, but he cannot cure the dead.Chinese.
The physician cannot drink the medicine for the patient.German.
Time is the ablest of all mental physicians.Fielding.
When the physician can advise the best the patient is dead.German.
When you call the physician call the judge to make your will.German.
Who has a physician has an executioner.German.
With respect to the gout, the physician is but a lout.
You need not doubt, you are no doctor.