You treat a disease, you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you, you'll win, no matter what the outcome.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of treating individuals with care and compassion rather than just focusing on their medical conditions.
Robin Williams highlights the distinction between treating a disease—which often results in uncertain outcomes—and treating a person, which involves empathy and human connection. By focusing on the individual rather than merely their ailment, healthcare professionals can foster a healing environment that transcends clinical results, ultimately leading to a more positive experience for both patient and caregiver.
In practice
Using this quote in a medical conference to underline the importance of patient-centered care.
It's that idea that you can have one drink - and no you can't. Within a week I was drinking heavily. It was so quick that even I was like, 'Wow.' Because you have that initial warm feeling going, 'Oh, I remember this'. And your body does, too. And your body goes, 'Yeah, so do I'. Then the demon voice comes, 'Yeah, so do I. You know what would be great? You know we bought a little bottle before? A full bottle would be wonderful'.
I always thought the idea of education was to learn to think for yourself.
Sometimes over things that I did, movies that didn't turn out very well - you go, 'Why did you do that?' But in the end, I can't regret them because I met amazing people. There was always something that was worth it.
I've never been asked to appear on 'I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!,' so I guess I mustn't be on the professional skids just yet.
The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying, 'Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and yelling, 'You want a piece of me?'
I write on big yellow legal pads - ideas in outline form when I'm doing stand-up and stuff. It's vivid that way. I can't type it into an iPad - I think that would put a filter into the process.
Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.
Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. Even if we run a hundred miles an hour to the other side of the continent, we find the very same problem awaiting us when we arrive.
There are a million 'oughts' in the world. There's a million ways in which I ought to be serving the world. But the ways I'm gifted to serve and the opportunities that come to me to serve are not a million.
This place where you are right now, God circled on a map for you.
There are few enough people with sufficient independence to see the weaknesses and follies of their contemporaries and remain themselves untouched by them.
It's important that we share our experiences with other people. Your story will heal you and your story will heal somebody else. When you tell your story, you free yourself and give other people permission to acknowledge their own story
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