Top 50 Patch Adams Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “See what no one else sees. See what everyone chooses not to see – out of fear, conformity, or laziness. See the whole world anew each day.”

— Patch Adams

2. “If you focus on the problem, you can’t see the solution. Never focus on the problem.”

— Patch Adams

3. “Spread joy. Chase your wildest dreams.”

— Patch Adams

4. “The purpose of a doctor or any human in general should not be to simply delay the death of the patient, but to increase the person’s quality of life.”

— Patch Adams

5. “Laughter boosts the immune system and helps the body fight off disease, cancer cells as well as viral, bacterial and other infections. Being happy is the best cure of all diseases!”

— Patch Adams

6. “Humor is an antidote to all ills.”

— Patch Adams

7. “The most radical act anyone can commit is to be happy.”

— Patch Adams

8. “You’ve got to know what you want. This is central to acting on your intentions. When you know what you want, you realize that all there is left then is time management. You’ll manage your time to achieve your goals because you clearly know what you’re trying to achieve in your life.”

— Patch Adams

9. “I love you without knowing how, why, or even from where.”

— Patch Adams

10. “I am a Doctor, but above all else I consider myself an activist for peace, justice and care for all people.”

— Patch Adams

11. “Every human being has an impact on another.”

— Patch Adams

12. “Please give your life to peace, justice and care.”

— Patch Adams

13. “Excellence in health means devoting your life to ending poverty.”

— Patch Adams

14. “One cannot separate the health of the individual from the health of the community, from the health of the world.”

— Patch Adams

15. “We can never get a re-creation of community and heal our society without giving our citizens a sense of belonging.”

— Patch Adams

16. “The value of friendship and just deep human contact grows out of giving.”

— Patch Adams

17. “We need each other, deeper than anyone ever dares to admit even to themselves. I think it is a genetic imperative that we huddle together and hold on to each other. There is no question in my mind that there is nothing else in life, really, than friendship.”

— Patch Adams

18. “At the age of 18, I made up my mind to never have another bad day in my life. I dove into a endless sea of gratitude from which I’ve never emerged.”

— Patch Adams

19. “I’d say that I think the most revolutionary act that you can commit in our society today is to be happy.”

— Patch Adams

20. “The role of a clown and a physician are the same – it’s to elevate the possible and to relieve suffering.”

— Patch Adams

21. “For me, spiritual means love in action. So if you are working for love, then you are a spiritual person.”

— Patch Adams

22. “People crave laughter as if it were an essential amino acid.”

— Patch Adams

23. “When I was a girl I would look out my bedroom window at the caterpillars; I envied them so much. No matter what they were before, no matter what happened to them, they could just hide away and turn into these beautiful creatures that could fly away completely untouched.”

— Patch Adams

24. “I want to live in a world where people become famous because of their work for peace and justice and care. I want the famous to be inspiring; their lives an example of what every human being has it in them to do – act from love!”

— Patch Adams

25. “The reason adults should look as though they are having fun, is to give kids a reason to want to grow up.”

— Patch Adams

26. “I like giving. Doing something for somebody else feels good.”

— Patch Adams

27. “Nature tops the list of potent tranquilizers and stress reducers. The mere sound of moving water has been shown to lower blood pressure.”

— Patch Adams

28. “Because we are interested in promoting wellness, we will integrate medicine with performing arts, arts and crafts, agriculture, recreation, nature, and social service.”

— Patch Adams

29. “Please live a healthy life – medicine is an imperfect science.”

— Patch Adams

30. “I think my government are fascists. I feel that if we don’t change from a society that worships money and power over to one that worships compassion and generosity, there is no hope for human survival this century.”

— Patch Adams

31. “Waiting in line is a great opportunity to meet people, daydream, or play.”

— Patch Adams

32. “When a dream takes hold of you, what can you do? You can run with it, let it run your life, or let it go and think for the rest of your life about what might have been.”

— Patch Adams

33. “When I hear real faithful people – whether it’s a real Christian, or a real Buddhist, or a real Muslim – I hear them use the language I use for a friend. So my metaphor for God is friend.”

— Patch Adams

34. “Nothing I study makes me think we will survive this century. And yet why am I so happy? Because it’s not too late. Just get off your ass and work for revolution.”

— Patch Adams

35. “Givers get trust quicker than other people. People trust generous people.”

— Patch Adams

36. “I’ve never made a penny being a doctor, so that makes it not a job. My sense of a doctor is that one is a presence caring for health. So I’m never not a doctor. People call me from all over the world who are hurting, and I care for them. Chatting is what more people want than anything.”

— Patch Adams

37. “Every problem in history is due to men, so I’m basically asking for humanity to nest itself in a feminine culture, probably for the next 1,000 years.”

— Patch Adams

38. “It’s such a paradox for them to say, “Oh, my God, I’ve thrown away my life,” and continue to do that for the last month of their life. I shake them, physically shake them, and say, “What about now? What about now?””

— Patch Adams

39. “I’m great at a deathbed. I’ve never given tranquillisers or psychiatric medicine. I’ve given love and fun and creativity and passion and hope, and these things ease suffering.”

— Patch Adams

40. “My first reaction was that the adult world was fake and liars and basically worked for money and power. I didn’t want to live in that world, so I spent a year, aged 17 to 18, trying to kill myself. I didn’t want to live in a world of violence and injustice.”

— Patch Adams

41. “Everyone has creative potential. Creativity involves using your imagination and inventiveness. Your unique expression of yourself is your creativity... Creativity can be magic when visiting people who are ill.”

— Patch Adams

42. “I am extremely intentional in making the environment around me playful and loving. I have great skill in that area.”

— Patch Adams

43. “All the messages our kids are getting is money-taking, not giving.”

— Patch Adams

44. “Jump for joy as we accomplish the dreams we adore.”

— Patch Adams

45. “The Gesundheit Institute is a pie in the face of greed – by taking the most expensive thing in America, health care, and giving it away for free.”

— Patch Adams

46. “I’m a raging leftist political activist. I’ve never had a spiritual thought in my life related to God. I’m clear that that’s a human invention.”

— Patch Adams

47. “Unlike a lot of people, I don’t feel powerless. I know I can do something. But anyone can do something, it’s not about being special. It’s about deciding to do it – to dive into work for peace and justice and care for everybody on the planet.”

— Patch Adams

48. “What I really want is a world where no one alive can remember what the word ‘war’ means. That’s my goal.”

— Patch Adams

49. “We men should be ashamed of ourselves. I think 85 percent of men are dangerous to women. We need to change to a values system nested in compassion and generosity, and women have carried that torch throughout history.”

— Patch Adams

50. “For most of human history, we lived communally in groups, and it was part of the security and nature of groups to help each other and groom each other.”

— Patch Adams