# Quotes about illness - Quotes: 37 - Authors: 29 - Topic page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness - JSON version (same data): https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.json ## Quotes > The attempts to heal enflame the fever more. [Virgil](https://www.leafyquotes.com/virgil.md) · [The Aeneid](https://www.leafyquotes.com/virgil/the-aeneid.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/virgil/the-aeneid/the-attempts-to-heal.md) Topics: [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > I enjoy convalescence. It is the part that makes illness worth while. [George Bernard Shaw](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw.md) · [Back to Methuselah](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/back-to-methuselah.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/back-to-methuselah/i-enjoy-convalescence.md) Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > Honesty from health professionals matters more to patients than almost everything else that they experience when ill. [Sissela Bok](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sissela-bok.md) · [Lying](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sissela-bok/lying.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sissela-bok/lying/honesty-from-health.md) Topics: [honesty](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/honesty.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > Cancer thrives on broken hearts; it is a vulture waiting for you to give up on human warmth. [Steve Toltz](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-toltz.md) · [A Fraction Of The Whole](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-toltz/a-fraction-of-the-whole.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steve-toltz/a-fraction-of-the-whole/cancer-thrives-on-broken.md) Topics: [loneliness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/loneliness.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > Even a brief illness or an accident can show you what is real and unreal in your life, what ultimately matters and what doesn't. [Eckhart Tolle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle.md) · [The Power of Now](https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/the-power-of-now.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/the-power-of-now/even-a-brief.md) Topics: [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > When a man of my father’s wealth dies of cancer, you know they haven’t found a cure. [Edward St Aubyn](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-st-aubyn.md) · [Some Hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-st-aubyn/some-hope.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-st-aubyn/some-hope/when-a-man.md) Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [wealth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/wealth.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > To fall suddenly sick when you have never been ill is a hard lesson. If it teaches anything, it teaches you that you must not trust to the thing you know, that it is better to build on shifting sand than the rock which may confound you on the day it shatters. [Tanith Lee](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tanith-lee.md) · [Vazkor, Son of Vazkor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tanith-lee/vazkor-son-of-vazkor.md) · p. 78 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tanith-lee/vazkor-son-of-vazkor/to-fall-suddenly.md) Topics: [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > Ingenuity, knowledge, and organization alter but cannot cancel humanity's vulnerability to invasion by parasitic forms of life. Infectious disease which antedated the emergence of humankind will last as long as humanity itself, and will surely remain, as it has been hitherto, one of the fundamental parameters and determinants of human history. [William H. McNeill](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-h-mcneill.md) · [Plagues and Peoples](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-h-mcneill/plagues-and-peoples.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-h-mcneill/plagues-and-peoples/ingenuity-knowledge-and.md) Topics: [history](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/history.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > ...But he had known the answer all along, even while the white doctors were telling him he could get well and he was trying to believe them: medicine didn't work that way, because the world didn't work that way. His sickness was only part of something larger, and his cure would be found only in something great and inclusive of everything. (p116) [Leslie Marmon Silko](https://www.leafyquotes.com/leslie-marmon-silko.md) · [Ceremony](https://www.leafyquotes.com/leslie-marmon-silko/ceremony.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/leslie-marmon-silko/ceremony/but-he-had.md) Topics: [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > At least Alzheimer's patients do not know what is happening to their brains and bodies. Some say this makes Alzheimer's less terrible than ALS, where the patient understands everything. But if lack of comprehension is of some small blessing to the Alzheimer's victim, it does nothing to help the family. Care of the stricken spouse or parent can consume a family's time, energy and resources. Instead of enjoying retirement years, a husband or wife, whose own strength may be declining with age, can find every day consumed by care giving. Then there is the wrenching decision of whether to place the loved one in a nursing home, a decision that can result in enormous cost, not to mention guilt. [John Danforth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-danforth.md) · [Faith and Politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-danforth/faith-and-politics.md) · p. 95 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-danforth/faith-and-politics/at-least-alzheimers.md) Topics: [family](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/family.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > Inevitably, in the secret chemistry of the emotions the feeling of pity for a sick person is imperceptibly bound up with tenderness. [Stefan Zweig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stefan-zweig.md) · [Beware of Pity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stefan-zweig/beware-of-pity.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stefan-zweig/beware-of-pity/inevitably-in-the.md) Topics: [compassion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/compassion.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > You may then think and speak of yourself as a “sufferer” of this or that chronic illness or disability. You receive a great deal of attention from doctors and others who constantly confirm to you your conceptual identity as a sufferer or a patient. You then unconsciously cling to the illness because it has become the most important part of who you perceive yourself to be. [Eckhart Tolle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle.md) · [A New Earth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/you-may-then.md) Topics: [identity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/identity.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > We are all ill; but even a universal sickness implies an idea of health. [Lionel Trilling](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lionel-trilling.md) · [The Liberal Imagination](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lionel-trilling/the-liberal-imagination.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lionel-trilling/the-liberal-imagination/we-are-all.md) Topics: [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md), [health](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/health.md) > White blood cells and other cells of ours actively seek out and kill foreign microbes. The specific antibodies that we gradually build up against a particular microbe infecting us make us less likely to get reinfected once we become cured. As we all know from experience, there are some illnesses, such as flu and the common cold, to which our resistance is only temporary; we can eventually contract the illness again. Against other illnesses, though—including measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis, and the now defeated smallpox — our antibodies stimulated by one infection confer lifelong immunity. That's the principle of vaccination: to stimulate our antibody production without our having to go through the actual experience of the disease, by inoculating us with a dead or weakened strain of microbe. [Jared Diamond](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jared-diamond.md) · [Guns, Germs, and Steel](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jared-diamond/guns-germs-and-steel.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jared-diamond/guns-germs-and-steel/white-blood-cells.md) Topics: [science](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > The infectious diseases that regularly visited crowded Eurasian societies, and to which many Eurasians consequently developed immune or genetic resistance, included all of history's most lethal killers: smallpox, measles, influenza, plague, tuberculosis, typhus, cholera, malaria, and others. [Jared Diamond](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jared-diamond.md) · [Guns, Germs, and Steel](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jared-diamond/guns-germs-and-steel.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jared-diamond/guns-germs-and-steel/the-infectious-diseases.md) Topics: [history](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/history.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > [Dr.] Riario’s laugh was harsh. “I hate smallpox, and even more I hate being helpless against it. If it’s God’s curse as they say, why, I curse God back for it.” [Harry Turtledove](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove.md) · [Agent of Byzantium](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove/agent-of-byzantium.md) · p. 68 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove/agent-of-byzantium/dr-riarios-laugh.md) Topics: [god](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > Wherever there is a heart and an intellect, the diseases of the physical frame are tinged with the peculiarities of these. [Nathaniel Hawthorne](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nathaniel-hawthorne.md) · [The Scarlet Letter](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nathaniel-hawthorne/the-scarlet-letter.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nathaniel-hawthorne/the-scarlet-letter/wherever-there-is-a-heart.md) Topics: [the body](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-body.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > Madness is locked beneath. It goes into tissues, is swallowed by the cells. The cells go mad. Cancer is their flag. Cancer is the growth of madness denied. [Norman Mailer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/norman-mailer.md) · [An American Dream](https://www.leafyquotes.com/norman-mailer/an-american-dream.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/norman-mailer/an-american-dream/madness-is-locked.md) Topics: [madness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/madness.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > It occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well. [F.Scott Fitzgerald](https://www.leafyquotes.com/fscott-fitzgerald.md) · [The Great Gatsby](https://www.leafyquotes.com/fscott-fitzgerald/the-great-gatsby.md) · p. 124 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/fscott-fitzgerald/the-great-gatsby/it-occurred-to-me-that.md) Topics: [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > Something about being helpless in bed, people hit you up for sympathy. They've got you where they want you. [John Hoyer Updike](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-hoyer-updike.md) · [Rabbit at Rest](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-hoyer-updike/rabbit-at-rest.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-hoyer-updike/rabbit-at-rest/something-about-being.md) Topics: [compassion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/compassion.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > What more fiendish proof of cosmic irresponsibility than a Nature which, having invented sex as a way to mix genes, then permits to arise, amid all its perfumed and hypnotic inducements to mate, a tireless tribe of spirochetes and viruses that torture and kill us for following orders? [John Hoyer Updike](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-hoyer-updike.md) · [Self-Consciousness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-hoyer-updike/self-consciousness.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-hoyer-updike/self-consciousness/what-more-fiendish.md) Topics: [nature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature.md), [sex](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/sex.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > The problem for a Paracelsian physician like me is that I see diseases as disguises in which people present me with their wretchedness. [Robertson Davies](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robertson-davies.md) · [The Cunning Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robertson-davies/the-cunning-man.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robertson-davies/the-cunning-man/the-problem-for.md) Topics: [suffering](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/suffering.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > ...those who say I am being punished are saying that god can't think of anything more vengeful than cancer for a heavy smoker. [Christopher Hitchens](https://www.leafyquotes.com/christopher-hitchens.md) · [Mortality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/christopher-hitchens/mortality.md) · p. 88 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/christopher-hitchens/mortality/those-who-say.md) Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [god](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > Ideas or the lack of them can cause disease. [Kurt Vonnegut](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut.md) · [Breakfast of Champions](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/breakfast-of-champions.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/breakfast-of-champions/ideas-or-the.md) Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > Disease makes men more physical, it leaves them nothing but body. [Thomas Mann](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann.md) · [The Magic Mountain](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/the-magic-mountain.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/the-magic-mountain/disease-makes-men.md) Topics: [the body](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-body.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > Disease was a perverse, a dissolute form of life. [Thomas Mann](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann.md) · [The Magic Mountain](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/the-magic-mountain.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/the-magic-mountain/disease-was-a-perverse.md) Topics: [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest in life. [Thomas Mann](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann.md) · [The Magic Mountain](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/the-magic-mountain.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/the-magic-mountain/all-interest-in-disease.md) Topics: [death](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death.md), [life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > One always has the idea of a stupid man as perfectly healthy and ordinary, and of illness as making one refined and clever and unusual. [Thomas Mann](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann.md) · [The Magic Mountain](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/the-magic-mountain.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/the-magic-mountain/one-always-has.md) Topics: [stupidity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/stupidity.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > Mental illness is not funny. [Philip K. Dick](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-k-dick.md) · [Valis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-k-dick/valis.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-k-dick/valis/mental-illness-is-not.md) Topics: [madness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/madness.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > I'm a sick man. And the more I see, the sicker I get. I'm so sick I think everybody else is sick and I'm the only healthy person. That's bad off, isn't it? [Philip K. Dick](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-k-dick.md) · [Solar Lottery](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-k-dick/solar-lottery.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-k-dick/solar-lottery/im-a-sick.md) Topics: [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > So that there are instances among them of men, who, ... still, from the audacious, daring, and boundless adventure of their subsequent lives, strangely blend with these unoutgrown peculiarities, a thousand bold dashes of character, not unworthy a Scandinavian sea-king, or a poetical Pagan Roman. And when these things unite in a man of greatly superior natural force, with a globular brain and a ponderous heart; who has also by the stillness and seclusion of many long night-watches in the remotest waters, and beneath constellations never seen here at the north, been led to think untraditionally and independently; receiving all nature's sweet or savage impressions fresh from her own virgin voluntary and confiding breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some help from accidental advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty language—that man makes one in a whole nation's census—a mighty pageant creature, formed for noble tragedies. Nor will it at all detract from him, dramatically regarded, if either by birth or other circumstances, he have what seems a half wilful over-ruling morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For all men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease. [Herman Melville](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville.md) · [Moby-Dick](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/moby-dick.md) · p. 82 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/moby-dick/so-that-there.md) Topics: [character](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/character.md), [ambition](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ambition.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > Talking to cancer victims never makes me feel righteous, never vindicated. It makes me slightly ill and for some reason, guilty. If people like me would just keep our mouths shut, people like him would never suspect why they got cancer. They'd chalk it up to God or probability. They wouldn't die with hearts full of venom. > > It is a strange world that Industry has made. Kind of a seething toxic harbor, opening out on a blue unspoiled ocean. Most people are swimming in it, and I get to float around on the surface, on my Zodiac, announcing that they're in trouble. What I really want to do is make a difference. But I'm not sure I have, yet. [Neal Stephenson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neal-stephenson.md) · [Zodiac](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neal-stephenson/zodiac.md) · p. 88 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neal-stephenson/zodiac/talking-to-cancer.md) Topics: [ecology](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ecology.md), [guilt](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/guilt.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > When we are young, we take a certain pleasure in our infirmities. They seem so new, so rich! With age, they no longer surprise us, we know them too well. Now, without anything unexpected in them, they do not deserve to be endured. [Emil Cioran](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran.md) · [The Trouble With Being Born](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born/when-we-are.md) Topics: [old age](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/old-age.md), [youth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/youth.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > In another moment I had scrambled up the earthen rampart and stood upon its crest, and the interior of the redoubt was below me. A mighty space it was, with gigantic machines here and there within it, huge mounds of material and strange shelter places. And scattered about it, some in their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the Martians—dead!—slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being slain; slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth. [H.G. Wells](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells.md) · [The War of the Worlds](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-war-of-the-worlds.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-war-of-the-worlds/in-another-moment.md) Topics: [death](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > For so it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have foreseen had not terror and disaster blinded our minds. These germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things — taken toll of our prehuman ancestors since life began here. But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power; to no germs do we succumb without a struggle, and to many — those that cause putrefaction in dead matter, for instance — our living frames are altogether immune. But there are no bacteria in Mars, and directly these invaders arrived, directly they drank and fed, our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow. Already when I watched them they were irrevocably doomed, dying and rotting even as they went to and fro. It was inevitable. By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain. [H.G. Wells](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells.md) · [The War of the Worlds](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-war-of-the-worlds.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-war-of-the-worlds/for-so-it-had.md) Topics: [death](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death.md), [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > The truth is, that in London it is always a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be. [Jane Austen](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-austen.md) · [Emma](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-austen/emma.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-austen/emma/the-truth-is-that.md) Topics: [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md) > A scourge is not on a human scale, and so people say it isn't real; it's a bad dream that will pass. But is doesn't always pass, and, from bad dream to bad dream, it's the humans who pass, and the humanists first, because they didn't heed the warnings. [Albert Camus](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus.md) · [The Plague](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/a-scourge-is-not.md) Topics: [illness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness.md)