Harvard大学医学院院长Sydney Burwell教授曾对学生说过这样一段话："在十年内，你们现在学习的知识有一半会证明是错误的，更糟糕的是我们不知道哪一半是错的。 　　路上有两种车，一种是兜风的，行车就是目的；另一种是赴约的，行车只是手段。 （只谈理论的兜风的，瞄着疗效的是赴约的。） 　　有人同一个错误重复了几十年，然后把它叫做经验。 （经验等于证据。） 　　歌德说："Experience is half of experience." (经历不等于经验。) 　　歌德说："Doubt grows with knowledge." (疑惑随着知识的增加而增加。) 　　美国前总统科学顾问："二十世纪医学最大的发现就是发现了人类多么无知。" 　　关于临床研究，David Sackett曾说："There are many ways to do it wrong, but only a few ways to do it right."(有很多种方法能把它做坏，只有几中方法能把好。) 　　关于文献管理，Muir Gray曾说："复印机是制造文献储存混乱的机器。" 　　马克思："认识世界的目的在于改造世界。"（疗效重于理论） 　　爱因斯坦对量子力学有这样一句批评："上帝不是靠仍色子的方式来决定自然规律的"。遗憾的是在医学领域，上帝处处多都在玩筛子，循证医学就是教医生如何应对这个医学实践的不确定性。 　　一位西哲说"医学是一门科学，但要成为一名医术高超的大夫却是一门艺术。" 循证医学正在解开医术这个千古之秘密。 　　Bernard曾说："当科学刺痛我们自尊的时候，也赋予了我们更大的力量。" 循证医学刺痛了医学的自尊和自傲，从此医学实践扎上了科学的翅膀。 　　在批评人们对飞机的热衷时，英国皇家科学院院长Lord Kelvin曾说："任何重于空气的人造物体绝对不可能会飞行。" 也有很多人预言在中国循证医学不可能行得通。 Chazal: The beautiful remains so in ugly surroundings. (文献检索) Wolfgang Pauli: This paper isn’t good enough to be wrong. (文献评估) Charles Darwin: How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service. （科学研究） Russell: Although this may seem a paradox, all exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation. （科学研究） John Mortimer: The one thing we can be sure of is uncertainty. （医学实践） Hohn Tukey: An approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, is far better than an exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise. （科学研究） Nietzsche: Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal. （医学决策） Louis Lasagna: The mind of man has removed the stopper of the medicine bottle. The chemical genie formerly imprisoned within now stands before us. He is a spirit know to work miracles, but also to wreak havoc---to improve or destroy it. （医学干预） Hippocrates: Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm. （医学决策） DJ Cook: We must recognise that even when clinicians make decisions based on the best evidence, their own ethical, moral and religious values influence their medical decision making. （医学决策） Archie Cochrane: My colleagues, in their devotion to their patients, evoke my admiration, but also remind me of the demands of families that nothing be left undone. I hope clinicians in the future will abandon the margin of the impossible and settle for rationale probability. （医学实践） Voltaire: The best is the enemy of the good. （苛求完美就意味着放弃今天合理的行动。） Osler: It is astonishing with how little reading a doctor can practice medicine, but it is not astonishing how badly he may do it. （医学教育） Gracian: Knowledge without sense is double folly. （医学教育） Chinese Proverb: Tell me, I will forget. Show me, I may remember. But involve me, and I will understand. （医学教育） Calvin Coolidge: Whoever acquires knowledge but does not practice it is like one who ploughs a field but does not sow it. （医学教育） Herbert Spencer: The great aim of education is not knowledge but action. （医学教育） Yissish Proverb: "For example" is not proof. （医学证据） Josh Billings: It is not what a man doesn’t know that makes him a fool, but what he does know that is not true. （医学证据） Coleridge: To most men, experience is like the stern lights of a ship, which illumine only the track it has passed. （经历与经验） Wilde: Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes. （经历与经验） Anonymous: Medicine is a science, acquiring a practice an art. （医学实践） Bernard Shaw: Doctors draw disastrous conclusions from his clinical experience because he has no conception of scientific method, and believes, like any rustic, that the handling of evidence needs no expertness. （循证医学的必要性） Hoffer: It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.