Joseph V. Simone, a visionary physician-scientist and writer of guidelines and maxims, died on Jan. 21. He was 85.

To celebrate Joe’s life, his family is allowing The Cancer Letter and the Cancer History Project to make Simone’s Maxims available in electronic form. The book continues to be available in paperback from Editorial Rx Press.

“Simone’s Maxims” is a book so fundamental to academic oncology that we don’t know when we are stealing Joe’s lines.

Here are three of Joe’s most famous maxims:

  • Institutions don’t love you back.
  • Leadership does matter.
  • Contrary to the laws of physics in academic institutions, crap flows uphill. 

Joe has been updating the maxims over the years. The first version was published as a journal article  in Clinical Cancer Research in 1999. The first version of the book was published in 2004, and in an expanded and updated edition in 2012.

This free PDF edition is made available by Simone’s family, and print editions are available from Editorial Rx Press.