Any doctor who is moderately active sees, in the course of a year, at least a couple of thousand people in his office. In almost eighteen years of practice I have had a good many people sit alongside my desk and tell me of their illnesses, anxieties and often personal tragedies. From this store of experience I have learned at least one basic truth, namely, that every man, woman and child on this earth, regardless even of whether he or she is moral or unmoral according to accepted standards, is worthy of and should be treated with respect, as befits the essential dignity of man.
[. . .]
I cannot say that I have liked every single man and woman I have met–though I have liked most of them–but liking has nothing to do with respect. There are people who become hypocrites, liars, thieves and murderers–just the same, they are human beings. I admit that I cannot help hating such people at times, but it doesn’t last. Hatred cannot last unless it is continuously nourished and stimulated.
[. . .]
Dr. Edmund A. Brasset lives with his wife and five children in Wakefield, Rhode Island. Tall, friendly, and easygoing, this very human man of science has a boundless interest in the world around him.
[. . .]
Now at work on a new book, Dr. Brasset claims that all his writing is done between the hours of four and six in the morning—the only two hours of the twenty-four, he says, that a conscientious doctor can really call his own.
Morgan, Edward P. (Catalogued under Murrow’s name.) This I Believe: the living philosophies of one hundred thoughtful men and women from all walks of life—as written for and with a foreword by Edward R. Murrow. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1952. Pages 14-13.
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