Explaining Why Not

The Master was known to side with the revolutionaries even at the risk of incurring the displeasure of the government.

When someone asked him why he himself did not actively plunge into social revolution, he replied with this enigmatic proverb:

“Sitting quietly doing nothing.Spring comes and the grass grows."

Quoting Paul Farmer

This man has the most fascinating collection of quotes. These are my favourites.

“I will define what I conceive medicine to be. In general terms, it is to do away with the suffering of the sick, to lessen the violence of their diseases, and to refuse to treat those who are over-ministered by their diseases, realising that in such cases medicine is powerless."
- Hippocrates
“The Art”

“For if medicine is really to accomplish its great task it must intervene in political and social life. It must point out the hindrances that impede the normal social functioning of vital processes and effect their removal.”
-Rudolf Virchow

“Our system is one of detachment: to keep silenced people from asking questions, to keep the judged from judging, to keep solitary people from joining together and the soul from putting together its pieces.”
-Eduardo Galeno
“Divorces”

A Worker's Speech to a Doctor

When we come to you
Our rags are torn off us
And you listen all over our naked body.
As to the cause of our illness
One glance at our rags would
Tell you more. It is the same cause that wears out
Our bodies and our clothes.

The pain in our shoulder comes
You say from the damp: and this is also the reason
For the stain on the wall of our flat.
So tell us:
Where does the damp come from?

-Bertolt Brecht