William James Mayo (June 29, 1861 – July 28, 1939) was a physician and surgeon in the United States and one of the seven founders of the Mayo Clinic.
William J. Mayo
P 5. "Property rights have heretofore been considered sacred; human rights, of less consequence”
P 38. “The great contribution we can make is to prepare the oncoming generations to think that they can and will think for themselves."
39. "When medical progress apparently lags it is often due to neglect to honor the great physicians of the past, thus neglecting to call public attention to medical progress through those who have made great achievements."
40. “There must be an adjustment of education to the individual."
52. When knowledge is translated into proper action we speak of it as wisdom
53. As we become more civilized we are beginning to emphasize not the differences that lead to antagonism but the common impulses and desires which lead to a better understanding
54. Age carries mental scars left by experience which shorten vision, but age carries wisdom.
55. "It is a great thing to make scientific discoveries of rare value, but it is even greater to be willing to share these discoveries and to encourage other workers in the same field of scientific research.
56. In the autumn of life one perhaps may be privileged to become reminiscent.
57. Individually the American is the most efficient man on earth; collectively and politically, extraordinarily inefficient.
58. “... it is better to think and sometimes think wrong than not to think at all.”
59. “As a nation, we see that we must raise the average level of intelligence if we are to have a good government because the average intelligence controls the form of government.'
60. "Today, it is impossible for any one man to know more than a little of comparatively few things.
62. "When one thinks of knowledge, books and other evidence of the development of the civilization of man come first to mind."
63. "It has been said, and I believe justly, that one should go to the educator for information but not for advice."
64. “The examining physician often hesitates to make the necessary examination because it involves soiling the finger.
65. "There is no excuse today for the surgeon to learn on the patient.
68. “One of the chief defects in our plan of education in this country is that we give too much attention to developing the memory and too little to develop the mind; we lay too much stress on acquiring knowledge and too little on the wise application of knowledge.
69. "Interpretation of the pathology of the living is the outstanding feature of modern medicine."
78. One meets with many men who have been fine students, and have stood high in their classes, who have great knowledge of medicine but very little wisdom in the application. They have mastered the science, and have failed in the understanding of the human being.'
74. "Democracy had its birth in the failure of autocracy.
75. "Democracy is safe only so long as the culture is in the ascendency, ...
82. "The church and the law deal with the yesterdays of life; medicine deals with the tomorrows."
90. "Books become friends that never fail
93. “To books we turn to learn of the past, opinions of the present, and prognostications of the future."
