Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (Metropolitan Books, 2014)

Atul Gawande · c. 2014

Atul Gawande did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this book, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The book prints chapter headings its extracted text does not preserve, so the claims below are in the book's order but not grouped. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Being mortal is the struggle to cope with the limits of our biology

Their wordsBeing mortal is about the struggle to cope with the constraints of our biology
Our reading
Courage is strength in the face of knowing what is to be feared or hoped

Their wordsCourage is strength in the face of knowledge of what is to be feared or hoped.
Our reading
Medicine has had almost no view of what makes life significant

Their wordsThe problem with medicine and the institutions it has spawned for the care of the sick and the old is not that they have had an incorrect view of what makes life significant. The problem is that they have had almost no view at all.
Our reading
Medicine has been wrong about what its job is

Their wordsWe’ve been wrong about what our job is in medicine.
Our reading
The cruellest failure in caring for the sick and old is ignoring priorities beyond safety and a longer life

Their wordsour most cruel failure in how we treat the sick and the aged is the failure to recognize that they have priorities beyond merely being safe and living longer
Our reading
The goal is not a good death but a good life to the very end

Their wordsOur ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death but a good life to the very end.
Our reading
Medicine's job is to enable well-being, not only to ensure health and survival

Their wordsWe think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being.

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Twilight of the Idols Friedrich Nietzsche · 3 Sept 1888 both about courage, happiness
Philosophy and the Social Problem Will Durant · c. 1917 both about courage, happiness

Found from what the books talk about: claims worded alike in the archive's hourly pass, and subjects both are filed under. It is not a judgement that they agree — related books often argue the opposite. All books

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