C. Everett Koop Quotes

Drugs don't work in patients who don't take them.

Health care is vital to all of us some of the time, but public health is vital to all of us all of the time

Life affords no greater responsibility, no greater privilege, than the raising of the next generation

The target audience goes back to conception. That means pre-natal care, safe delivery, post-natal screening, and the ordinary stuff you do in pediatrics.

You can't talk of the dangers of snake poisoning and not mention snakes.

A thousand people will stop smoking today. Their funerals will be held sometime in the next three or four days.

In thirty-five years of medicine I have never seen one case where abortion was necessary to save a mother's life.

The best prescription is knowledge.

Cigarette smoking is clearly identified as the chief, preventable cause of death in our society.

Your choice of diet can influence your long term health prospects more than any other action you might take.

All of the western world raises its children uncircumcised and it seems logical that, with the extent of health knowledge in those countries, such a practice must be safe.

The right of smokers to smoke ends where their behavior affects the health and well-being of others.

By the year 2025, 500 million people will die of smoking. Now, that's a Vietnam War every day for 27 years. That's the Titanic sinking every 27 minutes for 27 years.

At a time when we are pleading with foreign governments to stop the export of cocaine, it is the height of hypocrisy for the United States to export tobacco.

There are all kinds of things you can do to marry literacy with health.

When a child shows up for school, and is not physically and mentally ready to learn, he or she never catches up.

There are many stressed single parents who may be working two jobs in order to keep the family together.

The baby's life is never willfully destroyed because the mother's life is in danger.

If you want to say how can we step into childhood and make it better for them, I would start at the activity level. I'd like to say let your kids go out and play.

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has been in existence for most of this century.

I'd like to say let your kids go out and play. Then I'd say you're not going to do that are you? Make your kids go out and play.