Patch Adams
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.Collection: Hope
If we don't change from a world society that worships money and power to one that worships compassion and generosity, I think we'll be extinct by mid-century. I don't say that as an alarmist or as a pessimist.Collection: Society
Humor is an antidote to all ills.Collection: Humor
I'm a clown, which could be a public health role. I'm really interested in moving our society away from a society needing Xanax and Prozac, and that is really feeling depressed, to one that is celebrating, and so I find just walking around in colorful clothes, people smile.Collection: Smile
I've taken clowns into the war in Bosnia, the refugee camps of Kosovo, and none of those are any more important than clowning in a subway or an elevator or just walking down the street.Collection: War
Robin Williams was a wonderful, kind, and generous man. One important thing I remember about his personality is that he was unassuming - he never acted as if he was powerful or famous.Collection: Famous
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.
The role of a clown and a physician are the same - it's to elevate the possible and to relieve suffering.
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.
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.
When you left the house today, you had the intention of putting clothes on and you did. You didn't try to put your pants on today. You simply put them on. The same has to hold for all of our intentions. We don't try to be more loving partners. We make the intention, and we act on it.
I'm looking for a world where love will no longer be extraordinary.
I entered medicine to use it as a vehicle for social change.
Clowning is a trick to get love close. I can hug 99 percent of people in the first second of contact if I'm in my clown character. The clown assumes your humanity. It assumes that, whatever trauma you've had, you can still love yourself.
Everyone who goes to a job he doesn't like is a lot weirder than I am.
I make me. At 18, I decided I wasn't going to have an unconstructed self ever. I was going to be the composer, the designer, the architect of me. It's been really fun.
The medium of response in America is fame; that's how a person that bounces a ball can make millions of dollars, and a school teacher with no fame makes $35,000.
We are a breathtakingly alienated people... One of my props is the world's largest underpants. I've had the president of Costa Rica in my underpants with me.
Is letting our children watch TV a form of child abuse? If our children grow up knowing everything about Britney Spears and nothing about nature or faith, about anything, is that not a form of child abuse?
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.
While watching him work on the set of the film based on my life - Patch Adams - I saw that whenever there was a stressful moment, Robin would tap into his improvisation style to lighten the mood of cast and crew.
I first came to Russia because of the culture, literature and music... and my interest in the 19th-century revolutionary spirit of Herzen, Bakunin and Kropotkin. Russia is a wonderful place to bring new clowns because Russians give back a wonderful response.
Wearing underwear on the outside of your clothes can turn a tedious trip to the store for a forgotten carton of milk into an amusement park romp.
It is inexcusable that the richest country in the world does not take care of all of its people. We don't consider ourselves idealistic; we're thoughtfully trying to make a beautiful health care model.
What I really want is a world where no one alive can remember what the word 'war' means. That's my goal.
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!Collection: Each Day
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.Collection: Doctors
Remember laughing? Laughter enhances the blood flow to the body’s extremities and improves cardiovascular function. Laughter releases endorphins and other natural mood elevating and pain-killing chemicals, improves the transfer of oxygen and nutrients to internal organs. 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!Collection: Laughter
The reason adults should look as though they are having fun, is to give kids a reason to want to grow up.Collection: Inspirational
The most radical act anyone can commit is to be happy.Collection: Radical
If you want to change the world, then be your own focus for a celebration of life. Really, fundamentally, at the very core of your being, be thankful you are alive, that you've got this opportunity, with these molecules, at this moment. Be thankful! Be a celebrant! Be thankful that you are alive and then look around to see who else is at the party!Collection: Party
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!Collection: Laughter
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.Collection: Friendship
Every human being has an impact on another.Collection: Impact
We need to start treating the patient as well as the disease.Collection: Needs
Waiting in line is a great opportunity to meet people, daydream, or play.Collection: Positivity
For me, spiritual means love in action. So if you are working for love, then you are a spiritual person.Collection: Spiritual
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.Collection: Running
One cannot separate the health of the individual from the health of the community, from the health of the world.Collection: Community
If you focus on the problem, you can’t see the solution. Never focus on the problem.Collection: Focus
I'd say that I think the most revolutionary act that you can commit in our society today is to be happy.Collection: Happiness
People crave laughter as if it were an essential amino acid.Collection: Laughter
I like giving. Doing something for somebody else feels good.Collection: Giving
I love you without knowing how, why, or even from whereCollection: Love You
The value of friendship and just deep human contact grows out of giving.Collection: Giving
Spread joy. Chase your wildest dreams.Collection: Happiness
We can never get a re-creation of community and heal our society without giving our citizens a sense of belonging.Collection: Inspiring
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.Collection: Men
Please live a healthy life - medicine is an imperfect science.Collection: Life
Excellence in health means devoting your life to ending poverty.Collection: Mean