# Quote — Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

> "... How we treat the least of out brethren, how we treat the peasant suffering with volvulus, that's the measure of this country. Not our fighter planes or tanks, or how big the Emperor's palace happens to be ..."

- Author: [Abraham Verghese](https://www.leafyquotes.com/abraham-verghese.md)
- Book: [Cutting for Stone](https://www.leafyquotes.com/abraham-verghese/cutting-for-stone.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abraham_Verghese#Cutting_for_Stone_(2009)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/abraham-verghese/cutting-for-stone/how-we-treat

## More from this book

> Encouraged by the old surgical saw "Any idiot can amputate a led," Ghosh had decided to proceed. If he hesitated, it was because the rest of the saying went "but it takes a skilled surgeon to save one."

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/abraham-verghese/cutting-for-stone/encouraged-by-the.md)

> Ghosh trusted me to do whatever it is I would choose to do. That, too, is love. He'd been dead more than a quarter century and he was still teaching me about the trust that comes only from true love.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/abraham-verghese/cutting-for-stone/ghosh-trusted-me.md)

> But you reach a point where after trying and trying you say, Patience be damned. Let them suffer their distorted worldview. Your job is to preserve yourself, not to descend into their hole. It's a relief when you arrive at this place, the point of absurdity, because then you are free, you know you owe them nothing.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/abraham-verghese/cutting-for-stone/but-you-reach.md)