Edward Jenner

I have often thought that if mankind were more generally enlightened, they would be more virtuous.

The progress of science is slow, but it is sure.

I have always endeavoured to be guided by reason, and not by prejudice.

The most difficult task is often the most rewarding.

I have often found that the best way to learn is to teach.

The human mind is a wonderful machine; but it is also a very delicate one.

The most important lesson that I have learned in life is, that we should always endeavour to do our duty.

The deviation of man from the state in which he was originally placed by nature seems to have proved to him a prolific source of diseases.

I shall endeavor still further to prosecute this inquiry, an inquiry I trust not merely speculative, but of sufficient moment to inspire the pleasing hope of its becoming essentially beneficial to mankind.

The cow-pox protects the human constitution from the infection of smallpox.

I've dispatc'd, my dear madam, this scrap of a letter, To say that Miss — — is very much better. A Regular Doctor no longer she lacks, And therefore I've sent her a couple of Quacks.

Did you make a convert of the obstinate antivaxinist at Lello?

You see by the papers how I'm annoyed by a set of blockheads who write about the imperfection of the cowpox, as a vaccine, without any knowledge scarcely of its phenomena.

...has effectually put a stop to the sneers of those little minded persons who think everything impossible which does not come within the narrow sphere of their own comprehension.

Don't think; try.

The joy I felt at the prospect before me of being the instrument destined to take away from the world one of its greatest calamities was so excessive that I sometimes found myself in a kind of reverie.

How wonderful that this horrid pestilence should at this time even have an existence in our island . . . A Physician from Copenhagen call'd on me today, and express'd his astonishment at an opposition to vaccine Inoculation, as by that means only the smallpox was completely extinguish'd in that City.

This Inquiry will lay all those troublesome ghosts which have so long haunted the Metropolis with their ox-faces, & dismal hootings against Vaccination. However, tis all for the best – you may depend upon it the new Investigation will prove the touchstone of the vaccine discovery.

Altho' I should be happy to shield it myself from the speckled Monster, yet I would advise you not long to risk my coming to Town. I will just add that I consider the Vaccine Lancet in the hand of [Dr.] John Ring, just as safe as in my own.

It seems to be the determination of some of the jealous members of the ****** (R. *** Soc. y), not to suffer the Institution to sink, but on the / Other hand to master up a force, & support it with all possible vigour. I, of course should be happy to see every *******(Institution?) flourish which had for its object the subjugation of the Smallpox, and was at the same time well conducted. It would be almost unnatural in me were I to shew a backwardness in giving Countenance to the *** Soc.