«Boredom is a sickness the cure for which is work; pleasure is only a palliative.»

«All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.»

«But the only things that interrupted our happy family life came out there on the field, injuries and accidents and sickness, as the boys gave it all they had.»

«And this also is a sore evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go: and what profit hath he that hath laboured for the wind? / All his days also he eateth in darkness, and he hath much sorrow and wrath with his sickness.»

«And there came a writing to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, Thus saith the LORD God of David thy father, Because thou hast not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat thy father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah, / But hast walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and hast made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring, like to the whoredoms of the house of Ahab, and also hast slain thy brethren of thy father's house, which were better than thyself: / Behold, with a great plague will the LORD smite thy people, and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy goods: / And thou shalt have great sickness by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out by reason of the sickness day by day.»

«A temperate Diet frees from Diseases; such are seldom ill, but if they are surprised with Sickness, they bear it better, and recover sooner; for most Distempers have their Original from Repletion.»

«For all mortals, birth is suffering, ageing is suffering, sickness is suffering.»

«Right from the moment of our birth, we are under the care and kindness of our parents, and then later on in our life when we are oppressed by sickness and become old, we are again dependent on the kindness of others. Since at the beginning and end of our lives we are so dependent on other's kindness, how can it be in the middle that we would neglect kindness towards others?»

«Enduring habits I hate.... Yes, at the very bottom of my soul I feel grateful to all my misery and bouts of sickness and everything about me that is imperfect, because this sort of thing leaves me with a hundred backdoors through which I can escape from enduring habits.»

«Experience has taught me this, that we undo ourselves by impatience. Misfortunes have their life and their limits, their sickness and their health.»