QUOTATIONS

"The heart of animals is the foundation of their life, the sovereign of everything within them, the sun of their microcosm, that upon which all growth depends."

"To, err, to be deceived, is human, that many things are discovered by accident and they may be learned indifferently from any quarter, by an old man from a youth, by a person of understanding from one of inferior capacity".

"There is no perfect knowledge which can be entitled ours, that is innate, none but what has been obtained from experience, or derived in some way from our senses."

"Memory cannot exist without endurance of the things perceived, and the thing perceived cannot remain where it has never been."

"The heart is the household divinity which, discharging its function, nourishes, cherishes, quickens the whole body, and is indeed the foundation of life, the source of all action."

"All we know is still infinitely less than all the remains unknown."

"I should scare hope that it could come out scatheless and complete, for you have in general been the faithful witness of almost all the instances from which I have either collected the truth or confuted error."

"True philosophers, who are only eager for truth and knowledge, never regard themselves as already so thoroughly informed, but that they welcome further information from whomsoever and from wheresoever it may come."

"All we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains unknown."

"The dull and un-intellectual are indisposed to see what lies before their eyes, and even deny the light of the moonday sun."

"I profess both to learn and to teach anatomy, not from books but from dissections, not from the positions of philosophers but from the fabric of nature."

"I do not think it right or proper to strive to take from the ancients any honor that is their due, nor yet to dispute with the moderns, and enter into controversy with those who have excelled in anatomy."

"I would not charge with willful falsehood anyone who was sincerely anxious for truth, nor lay it to any one's door as a crime that he had fallen into error."

"What is true may be confirmed, and what is false set right by dissection, multiplied experience, and accurate observation."

"Thus, nature, ever perfect and divine, doing nothing in vain, has neither given a heart where it was not required, nor produced it before necessary."

On Problems with Journalism:

"The crowd of foolish scribblers is scarcely less than the swarms of flies in the height of summer, and threatens with their crude and flimsy productions to stifle us as with smoke."

On his Discovery of the Quantity of Blood passing through the Heart :

"(The truth is) so novel and unheard of that I tremble lest I have mankind at large for my enemies, so much doth wont and custom become a second nature. Doctrine once sown strikes deep its root and respect for antiquity influences all men. Still the die is cast, and my trust is in my love of truth and the candor of cultivated minds."