Today, on World Patients’ Day, we salute everyone who has struggled, is struggling or is living with an illness with a beautiful quote from Sándor Márai’s book Weed. To know that you are not alone, neither with your problem, nor with your everyday worries and perplexities, but that you must first of all find the support within yourself. Because everyone has the greatest strength within them, and the environment can help to awaken and support this strength, just like the HEART!

“In the terrible race of life, most people only rest when they are sick. Sickness, in the words of the French poet, is not only the journey of the poor, but also the holiday of the poor, the winter Riviera, the Tatras and Egypt. To feverish spirits, illness sends a real fever to calm them down a little. The ambitious and insatiable man on the run, who, like the poet Kleist, ‘changes cities like a feverish man changes his carts’, only recalls his true desires and hopeless passions when he is in bed.

Illness is also rest, it is a cliché. Therefore, anticipate nature’s command, the forced sick leave, and add little artificial illnesses to the rhythm of your life, so that you can rest. Keep your bed in good health for a day at a time. Thou hast a wolf’s appetite, thou wouldst chew the nail: fast a day or two voluntarily. Your heart is not yet nagging for nicotine: reward it by giving up cigarettes for three days without compelling need. Your body is so grateful for the slightest attention! And these small, artificial illnesses and states of cure, voluntary diets, withdrawals and rests, recalled without the command of illness, are the equivalent of an oriental journey or an appendectomy. Try it. You will see miracles.”