Doctors are men who prescribe medicine of which they know little, to human beings of whom they know less, to cure diseases of which they know nothing.

Note: This attribution to Voltaire appears in Strauss' Familiar Medical Quotations (1968), p. 394, and in publications as early as 1956 ; the quotation in French does not, however, appear to be original, and is probably a relatively modern invention, only quoted in recent (21st century) published works, which attribute it to "Voltaire" without citing any source.