Bernie Siegel Quotes

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Bernie Siegel

Profession : Writer

Birth : October 14, 1932

Mind-body medicine should not be an 'alternative,' nor should complementary and integrative medicine be something doctors are not exposed to during their training.

Bernie Siegel

The thing you see in survivors is that they express feelings - I won't say some of the things they tell their doctors, when doctors tell them they're going to die in six months. Boy, do they let the doctor know how they feel about that statement.

Bernie Siegel

If God had made a perfect world, it would be a magic trick, not creation, with no meaning or place for us to learn and create. Mankind is not yet ready for a perfect world. We do not know how to appreciate perfection.

Bernie Siegel

Medicine is a very tough thing. I mean, everyone is going to die. Sooner or later. That's a tough thing to face.

Bernie Siegel

Traditional doctors say I'm a mystic. I don't deny it.

Bernie Siegel

The question is not, will there be difficulties and threats to our existence, but how will we deal with them and what can we learn from them. How can they become blessings to society, as a life threatening disease is to an individual, by teaching us about the meaning of our life and existence?

Bernie Siegel

There have been many dreams which have been personal guides for me.

Bernie Siegel

For me, consciousness is non-local, not limited to the body, and can exist independent of it.

Bernie Siegel

As doctors, we are not trained to communicate and understand the power of our words as they relate to a patient's ability and desire to survive.

Bernie Siegel

Parents, teachers, clergy and physicians change lives with their words. It is hypnotic for a child or patient to hear an authority figure's words. As I am always sharing, 'wordswordswords' can become 'swordswordswords,' and we can kill or cure with either words or swords.

Bernie Siegel

Stories change people while statistics give them something to argue about.

Bernie Siegel

Society should see parenting as a public health issue and help parents to bring their children up feeling loved. We have birthing classes, but no parenting classes. The latter is desperately needed if we are to avoid self-destruction.

Bernie Siegel

Your body loves you, but if you do not love your life, it will end it far sooner, thinking it is doing you a favor.

Bernie Siegel

I wish medical schools helped us to analyze our healthy and unhealthy reasons for becoming doctors.

Bernie Siegel

I truly feel the best doctors are ones who are criticized by nurses, patients and family. They do not make excuses and learn from their mistakes.

Bernie Siegel

When one teenager dying of cystic fibrosis asked me, 'Why am I different?' I answered, 'Tony, because it makes you beautiful.' He loved my answer because he knew full well how much he had done for the world and that he would be immortal through his love and the fund raising of those who knew him hoping to find a cure for cystic fibrosis.

Bernie Siegel

I have learned to become not an M.D. but a 'C.D.' for the wounded people I meet. Yes, a 'Chosen Dad' who may not like their behavior but loves and reparents them and helps them to heal their lives and find self-worth and self-esteem and save their lives.

Bernie Siegel

I see people who die a few minutes after a doctor tells them there is no hope of a cure. They give up and go. Others get angry and find joy in proving the doctor wrong. Something within them is challenged and hopeful. Hope is the divine motivator.

Bernie Siegel

There is survival behavior, and doctors need to learn from patients who do not die when they are supposed to, instead of saying, 'You're doing very well, so keep doing whatever you are doing.' They should be asking what their patient is doing and pass the information to other patients.

Bernie Siegel

If you talk to your body, it will listen.

Bernie Siegel