Top 100 Andrew Weil Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “Genuine happiness comes from within, and often it comes in spontaneous feelings of joy.”

— Andrew Weil

52. “In Europe, when tobacco was first introduced, it was immediately banned. In Turkey, if you got caught with tobacco, you had your nose slit. China and Russia imposed the death penalty for possession of tobacco.”

— Andrew Weil

53. “Please keep in mind the distinction between healing and treatment: treatment originates from outside, whereas healing comes from within.”

— Andrew Weil

54. “Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, is not a cause of obesity, heart disease or any other chronic disease of civilization.”

— Andrew Weil

55. “The world is beset by many problems, but in my opinion, this hijacking of our brain’s reward centers by electronic media is potentially one of the most destructive.”

— Andrew Weil

56. “I’m not against high-tech medicine. It has a secure place in the diagnosis and treatment of serious disease.”

— Andrew Weil

57. “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

58. “Remember that breath walking – as with any meditation technique – should not be pursued with a grim determination to ‘get it right.’ The point is to cultivate openness, relaxation and awareness, which can include awareness of your undisciplined, wandering mind.”

— Andrew Weil

59. “If I had to limit my advice on healthier living to just one tip, it would be simply to learn how to breathe correctly.”

— Andrew Weil

60. “Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine.”

— Andrew Weil

61. “My personal opinion is that the neutral position on the mood spectrum – what I called emotional sea level – is not happiness but rather contentment and the calm acceptance that is the goal of many kinds of spiritual practice.”

— Andrew Weil

62. “More than one skillful physician has said that if one asks the right questions, the patient will make the diagnosis for you in his or her own words.”

— Andrew Weil

63. “True, nuts are high in fat, but most of them contain monounsaturated fat that is good for the heart. In fact, eaten in moderation, nuts can lower your risk of heart disease and heart attack.”

— Andrew Weil

64. “The choice is ours: we can keep on craving what we don’t have, and so perpetuate our unhappiness, or we can adjust our attitude toward what we do have so that our expectations conform to our experience.”

— Andrew Weil

65. “I have always believed that the primary function of doctors should be to teach people how not to get sick in the first place. The word “doctor” comes from the Latin word for “teacher.” Teaching prevention should be primary; treatment of existing disease, secondary. I.”

— Andrew Weil

66. “A beautiful bouquet or a long-lasting flowering plant is a traditional gift for women, but I have recommended that both men and women keep fresh flowers in the home for their beauty, fragrance, and the lift they give our spirits.”

— Andrew Weil

67. “Another very common use, in all cultures, of psychoactive substances is to give people transcendent experiences. To allow them to transcend their human and ego boundaries to feel greater contact with the supernatural, or with the spiritual, or with the divine, however they phrase it in their terms.”

— Andrew Weil

68. “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

69. “Drugs don’t have spiritual potential, human beings have spiritual potential. And it may be that we need techniques to move us in that direction, and the use of psychoactive drugs clearly is one path that has helped many people.”

— Andrew Weil

70. “Short naps are good. Given modern workplace demands, this is not possible for many people – but if you have the option, try napping for ten to twenty minutes in the afternoon, preferably lying down in a darkened room.”

— Andrew Weil

71. “Alternative models are neither right nor wrong, just more or less useful in allowing us to operate in the world and discover more and better options for solving problems.”

— Andrew Weil

72. “Many exercise forms – aerobic, yoga, weights, walking and more – have been shown to benefit mood.”

— Andrew Weil

73. “I am not against all forms of high-tech medicine. Drugs and surgeries have a secure place in the treatment of serious health conditions. But modern American medicine treats almost every health condition as if it were an emergency.”

— Andrew Weil

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

— Andrew Weil

75. “Any drug can be used successfully, no matter how bad it’s reputation, and any drug can be abused, no matter how accepted it is. There are no good or bad rugs; there are only good and bad relationships with drugs.”

— Andrew Weil

76. “One of the findings of the landmark Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey of almost thirty thousand Americans, published in 2000, was that those who give contributions of time or money are 42 percent more likely to be happy than those who don’t give.”

— Andrew Weil

77. “Even low-calorie diets and vigorous exercise fail to work in the long term for at least some people.”

— Andrew Weil

78. “What part of ourselves needs to evaporate in order to concentrate our essence? What do we have to let go?”

— Andrew Weil

79. “But hard does not mean depressed, just as easy does not mean content.”

— Andrew Weil

80. “The more people have, the less content they seem to be. In America, the cultural expectation that we’re to be happy all the time and our children are to be happy all the time is toxic, and I think that really gets in the way of emotional well-being.”

— Andrew Weil

81. “Healing is making whole, restoring a state of perfection and balance that has been lost.”

— Andrew Weil

82. “I don’t get money from the vitamins that I make. My after tax profits go to a foundation that supports integrative medicine.”

— Andrew Weil

83. “American businesses are struggling to pay outrageous, exploitive insurance bills for their employees, hampering our ability to compete globally.”

— Andrew Weil

84. “Dreaming is a phenomenon of purely individual consciousness, and consequently impossible to thoroughly deconstruct by a community of researchers. But dreaming matters.”

— Andrew Weil

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

— Andrew Weil

86. “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

87. “It’s rare – too rare, I have to say – for botanists to become doctors.”

— Andrew Weil

88. “I am a particular fan of integrative exercise – that is, exercise that occurs in the course of doing some productive activity such as gardening, bicycling to work, doing home improvement projects and so on.”

— Andrew Weil

89. “Insurance companies, whether private or government owned, must be compelled to pay for health-promoting measures. In turn, this will encourage physicians to offer such treatments in earnest.”

— Andrew Weil

90. “The usual justification for eating extra meals is that it keeps the metabolism ‘revved up’ so that weight loss is easier. There is, however, very little hard evidence that supports this idea, and a fair amount that disputes it.”

— Andrew Weil

91. “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

92. “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

93. “To be clear, I worry as much about the impact of the Internet as anyone else. I worry about shortening attention spans, the physical cost of sedentary ‘surfing’ and the potential for coarsening discourse as millions of web pages compete for attention by appealing to our base instincts.”

— Andrew Weil

94. “I know of no culture in the world at present or any time in the past that has not been heavily involved with one or more psychoactive substances.”

— Andrew Weil

95. “Carbohydrate density is simple to calculate – just divide the quantity of carbohydrate in food by the weight of the food. The more carbs packed into a given gram of food, the higher its carbohydrate density.”

— Andrew Weil

96. “The more easily digestible and refined the carbohydrates, the greater the effect on our health, weight and well-being.”

— Andrew Weil

97. “In my view, the best gift is one that benefits both the receiver and the planet.”

— Andrew Weil

98. “Studies have shown that people who are physically active sleep better than those who are sedentary. The more energy you expend during the day, the sleepier you will feel at bedtime.”

— Andrew Weil

99. “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

100. “I’m still not comfortable recommending that people eat saturated fat with abandon, but it’s clear to me that sugar, flour and oxidized seed oils create inflammatory effects in the body that almost certainly bear most of the responsibility for elevating heart disease risk.”

— Andrew Weil