Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
VoltaireRead
Doctors put drugs of which they know little into bodies of which they know less for diseases of which they know nothing at all.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote critiques the medical profession's reliance on treatments they do not fully understand.
Voltaire's quote highlights the paradox and irony in the practice of medicine, suggesting that physicians often administer treatments without a complete understanding of either the drugs or the patients' conditions. It reflects a deeper skepticism about the medical establishment and urges a critical examination of how health care is delivered and understood, questioning the knowledge and ethics behind medical practices.
Themes
MedicineKnowledgeHealthCritiqueSkepticism
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about the limitations of modern medicine during a health seminar.
More from Voltaire
All quotes βHe was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.
VoltaireRead
It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
VoltaireRead
It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
VoltaireRead
We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature.
VoltaireRead
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.
VoltaireRead
Similar quotes
He knows what it's like to strut and fret his hour upon the stage and then be heard no more.
William ShakespeareRead
I don't know about Heaven or Hell, but I do know that we are visited all the time by the spirits of those who affected us in life.
Mitch AlbomRead
I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state.
Roger EbertRead
When you do not realize that you are one with the river, or one with the universe, you have fear. Whether it is separated into drops or not, water is water. Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore.
Shunryu SuzukiRead
Just as none of us is outside or beyond geography, none of us is completely free from the struggle over geography. That struggle is complex and interesting because it is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings.
Edward SaidRead
Death, the real simile for disease - for when we are ill, do we not always feel like we are dying, even if it's only a little? - remains, despite our secularism, the most metaphoricised phenomenon of all.
Will SelfRead