Welcome to our collection of quotes by Patch Adams
Wikipedia Summary for Patch Adams
Hunter Doherty "Patch" Adams (born May 28, 1945) is an American physician, comedian, social activist, clown, and author. He founded the Gesundheit! Institute in 1971. Each year he also organizes volunteers from around the world to travel to various countries where they dress as clowns to bring humor to orphans, patients, and other people.
Adams is currently based in Urbana, Illinois. In collaboration with the institute, he promotes an alternative health care model not funded by insurance policies.
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!
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!
The role of a clown and a physician are the same it's to elevate the possible and to relieve suffering.
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!
The value of friendship and just deep human contact grows out of giving.
The reason adults should look as though they are having fun, is to give kids a reason to want to grow up.
Givers get trust quicker than other people. People trust generous people.
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.
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.
For me, spiritual means love in action. So if you are working for love, then you are a spiritual person.
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.
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.
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.
Nature tops the list of potent tranquilizers and stress reducers. The mere sound of moving water has been shown to lower blood pressure.
I am a Doctor, but above all else I consider myself an activist for peace, justice and care for all people.
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.
I'd say that I think the most revolutionary act that you can commit in our society today is to be happy.
Waiting in line is a great opportunity to meet people, daydream, or play.
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.
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.
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.
Because we are interested in promoting wellness, we will integrate medicine with performing arts, arts and crafts, agriculture, recreation, nature, and social service.
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.
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!
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.
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.
We can never get a re-creation of community and heal our society without giving our citizens a sense of belonging.
Kindness Day? Kindness Day? Do you suppose if we were kind and enthusiastic for centuries uninterruptedly, that someone would create 'Nasty, Indifferent Day'?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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'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.
Everyone who goes to a job he doesn't like is a lot weirder than I am.
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.
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.
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.
The role of a clown and a physician are the same -- it's to elevate the possible and to relieve suffering.
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.
What I really want is a world where no one alive can remember what the word 'war' means. That's my goal.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!