Andrew Weil

Andrew Weil

32 quotes

Physician and author and wordsmith — Andrew Weil (b. 1942) is an American voice whose observations cut across disciplines. Whether reflecting on Health or Gardening, Andrew Weil brought uncommon clarity to every subject. Discover 42 of Andrew Weil's most memorable quotes, ranging across Health, Gardening, Food, Medical, and Home. A favorite of many readers: "I fully support a national health care program for the U.S."

“Each day as I travel through downtown Tucson, I am amazed at how quickly the most ancient of human behaviors have changed. For as long as there have been Homo sapiens - roughly 200,000 years - people have filled their lives principally with two activities: talking directly with other people, and doing physical things.”

— Andrew Weil

Travel

All Quotes by Andrew Weil

“It does kids no favors, and sets them up for a potential lifetime of poor health and social embarrassment, to excuse them from family meals of real food. Everyone benefits from healthy eating, but it is particularly crucial at the beginning of life.”

— Andrew Weil

Food

“Whenever I write about mental health and integrative therapies, I am accused of being prejudiced against pharmaceuticals. So let me be clear - integrative medicine is the judicious application of both conventional and evidence-based natural therapies.”

— Andrew Weil

Health

“Fear and greed are potent motivators. When both of these forces push in the same direction, virtually no human being can resist.”

— Andrew Weil

Fear

“One of the most obvious ways dogs can improve our physical and mental health is via daily walks.”

— Andrew Weil

Health

“By keeping my hand in that, it's the way I keep learning. The main way you learn in medicine is by practicing and working with patients.”

— Andrew Weil

Learning

“Most American diets, even bad ones, provide more than enough calcium for bone health, especially for men.”

— Andrew Weil

Health

“Low levels of vitamin D in the population as a whole suggest that most people need to take a vitamin D supplement. This may be especially true for seniors, as the ability to synthesize vitamin D in the skin declines with age.”

— Andrew Weil

Age

“The most common objection that I hear to walking as exercise is that it's too easy, that only sweaty, strenuous activity offers real benefits. But there is abundant evidence that regular, brisk walking is associated with better health, including lower blood pressure, better moods and improved cholesterol ratios.”

— Andrew Weil

Health

“In the world at large, people are rewarded or punished in ways that are often utterly random. In the garden, cause and effect, labor and reward, are re-coupled. Gardening makes sense in a senseless world. By extension, then, the more gardens in the world, the more justice, the more sense is created.”

— Andrew Weil

Gardening

“If we can make the correct diagnosis, the healing can begin. If we can't, both our personal health and our economy are doomed.”

— Andrew Weil

Health

“You can't afford to get sick, and you can't depend on the present health care system to keep you well. It's up to you to protect and maintain your body's innate capacity for health and healing by making the right choices in how you live.”

— Andrew Weil

Health

“The bottom line is that the human body is complex and subtle, and oversimplifying - as common sense sometimes impels us to do - can be hazardous to your health.”

— Andrew Weil

Health

“Each day as I travel through downtown Tucson, I am amazed at how quickly the most ancient of human behaviors have changed. For as long as there have been Homo sapiens - roughly 200,000 years - people have filled their lives principally with two activities: talking directly with other people, and doing physical things.”

— Andrew Weil

Travel

“Human beings have survived for millennia because most of us make good decisions about our health most of the time.”

— Andrew Weil

Health

“As an American, you have a right to good health care that is effective, accessible, and affordable, that serves you from infancy through old age, that allows you to go to practitioners and facilities of your choosing, and that offers a broad range of therapeutic options.”

— Andrew Weil

Age

“I have argued for years that we do not have a health care system in America. We have a disease-management system - one that depends on ruinously expensive drugs and surgeries that treat health conditions after they manifest rather than giving our citizens simple diet, lifestyle and therapeutic tools to keep them healthy.”

— Andrew Weil

Diet

“My passion for gardening may strike some as selfish, or merely an act of resignation in the face of overwhelming problems that beset the world. It is neither. I have found that each garden is just what Voltaire proposed in Candide: a microcosm of a just and beautiful society.”

— Andrew Weil

Gardening

“Citizens must pressure the American Hospital Association, the American Public Health Association, the Centers for Disease Control and other relevant governmental agencies to make greening our hospitals and medical centers a top priority so that they themselves don't create even more illness.”

— Andrew Weil

Health

“Gardening is not trivial. If you believe that it is, closely examine why you feel that way. You may discover that this attitude has been forced upon you by mass media and the crass culture it creates and maintains. The fact is, gardening is just the opposite - it is, or should be, a central, basic expression of human life.”

— Andrew Weil

Attitude

“Clearly, America's dysfunctional food culture must bear some of the blame for our excess pounds, but it's likely our walking-averse lifestyles contribute as well.”

— Andrew Weil

Food