"For what Harley Street specialist has time to understand the body, let alone the mind or both in combination, when he is a slave to thirteen thousand a year?"
- Virginia Woolf
About this Quote
This quote by Virginia Woolf is a criticism of the medical profession in the early 20th century. Woolf is recommending that the professionals working in Harley Street, a distinguished location of London, are too focused on generating income to be able to effectively comprehend the complexities of the body and mind. She implies that these specialists are so focused on making their thirteen thousand a year salary that they do not have the time to appropriately understand the body and mind in mix. Woolf is recommending that the medical profession is too concentrated on cash and not enough on understanding the complexities of the mind and body. This quote is a criticism of the medical occupation and a call for more understanding and compassion in the field. Woolf is suggesting that the medical occupation ought to be focused on comprehending the mind and body, not simply generating income.
"The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it"