Hippocrates Quotes

All the most acute, most powerful, and most deadly diseases, and those which are most difficult to be understood by the inexperienced, fall upon the brain.

Declare the past,
diagnose the present,
foretell the future.

Where prayer, amulets and incantations work it is only a manifestation of the patient's belief.

Things that are holy are revealed only to men who are holy ...

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.

I am about to discuss the disease called 'sacred'. It is not, in my opinion, any more divine or more sacred that other diseases, but has a natural cause, and its supposed divine origin is due to men's inexperience, and to their wonder at its peculiar character.

Even when all is known, the care of a man is not yet complete, because eating alone will not keep a man well; he must also take exercise. For food and exercise, while possessing opposite qualities, yet work together to produce health.

Whoever is to acquire a competent knowledge of medicine, ought to be possessed of the following advantages: a natural disposition; instructionl a favorable place for the study; early tuition, love of labor; leisure.

The human soul develops up to the time of death.

If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.

Our food should be our medicine and our medicine should be our food.

Nature itself is the best physician.

Old people have fewer diseases than the young, but their diseases never leave them.

Sometimes give your services for nothing.

Who could have foretold, from the structure of the brain, that wine could derange its functions?

The art is long, life is short.

A physician who is a lover of wisdom is the equal to a god.

Life is short, science is long; opportunity is elusive, experiment is dangerous, judgement is difficult.

Timidity betrays want of powers, and audacity a want of skill. There are, indeed, two things, knowledge and opinion, of which the one makes its possessor really to know, the other to be ignorant.

But medicine has long had all its means to hand, and has discovered both a principle and a method, through which the discoveries made during a long period are many and excellent, while full discovery will be made, if the inquirer be competent, conduct his researches with knowledge of the discoveries already made, and make them his starting-point. But anyone who, casting aside and rejecting all these means, attempts to conduct research in any other way or after another fashion, and asserts that he has found out anything, is and has been victim of deception.

Anyone wishing to study medicine must master the art of massage.

The art has three factors, the disease, the patient, the physician. The physician is the servant of the art. The patient must cooperate with the physician in combatting the disease.

Fat people who want to reduce should take their exercise on an empty stomach and sit down to their food out of breath ... Thin people who want to get fat should do exactly the opposite and never take exercise on an empty stomach.

All disease starts in the gut.

If for the sake of a crowded audience you do wish to hold a lecture, your ambition is no laudable one, and at least avoid all citations from the poets, for to quote them argues feeble industry.

I swear ... to hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture.

When doing everything according to indications, although things may not turn out agreeably to indication, we should not change to another while the original appearances remain.

I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion.

The forms of diseases are many and the healing of them is manifold.

Life is short, and the Art long; the occasion fleeting; experience fallacious, and judgment difficult. The physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, and externals cooperate.

Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance.

For if a man by magical arts and sacrifices will bring down the moon, and darken the sun, and induce storms, or fine weather, I should not believe that there was anything divine, but human, in these things, provided the power of the divine were overpowered by human knowledge and subjected to it.

Look well to the spine for the cause of disease.

All diseases begin in the gut.

People think that epilepsy is divine simply because they don't have any idea what causes epilepsy. But I believe that someday we will understand what causes epilepsy, and at that moment, we will cease to believe that it's divine. And so it is with everything in the universe

Just as food causes chronic disease, it can be the most powerful cure

Men ought to know that from nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations. And by this, in an especial manner, we acquire wisdom and knowledge, and see and hear and know what are foul and what are fair, what are bad and what are good, what are sweet and what are unsavory ... . And by the same organ we become mad and delirious, and fears and terrors assail us ... .All these things we endure from the brain when it is not healthy ... .In these ways I am of the opinion that the brain exercises the greatest power in the man.

Life is short, the art long.

It is more important to know the person who has the condition than it is to know the condition the person has.

We must turn to nature itself, to the observations of the body in health and in disease to learn the truth.

All excesses are inimical to Nature. It is safer to proceed a little at a time, especially when changing from one regimen to another.

Sleep and watchfulness, both of them, when immoderate, constitute disease.

The way to health is to have an aromatic bath and a scented massage every day.

The wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings. Let food be your medicine.

Sport is a preserver of health.

There are, in effect, two things, to know and to believe one knows; to know is science; to believe one knows is ignorance.

Silence is not only never thirsty, but also never brings pain or sorrow.

Divine is the task to relieve pain

In acute diseases it is not quite safe to prognosticate either death or recovery.

And he will manage the cure best who has foreseen what is to happen from the present state of matters.

Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food.

Each of the substances of a man's diet acts upon his body and changes it in some way and upon these changes his whole life depends.

There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.

If you are in a bad mood go for a walk.If you are still in a bad mood go for another walk.

Idleness and lack of occupation tend - nay are dragged - towards evil ...

Of several remedies, the physician should choose the least sensational.

It is better not to apply any treatment in cases of occult cancer; for if treated (by surgery), the patients die quickly; but if not treated, they hold out for a long time.

The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words.

I also maintain that clear knowledge of natural science must be acquired, in the first instance, through mastery of medicine alone.

A sensible man ought to think about that well being is the best of human blessings, and find out how by his personal thought to derive profit from his sicknesses.

Get knowledge of the spine, for this is the requisite for many diseases

Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases.

First of all a natural talent is required; for when Nature opposes, everything else is in vain; but when Nature leads the way to what is most excellent, instruction in the art takes place ...

What medicines do not heal, the lance will; what the lance does not heal, fire will.

Rest as soon as there is pain.

Walking is man's best medicine.

The physician must be able to tell the antecedents, know the present, and foretell the future - must mediate these things, and have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm.

Physicians are many in title but very few in reality.

Whoever wishes to investigate medicine should proceed thus: In the first place, consider the seasons of the year and what effect each of them produces.

Medicine is of all the Arts the most noble; but, owing to the ignorance of those who practice it, and of those who, inconsiderately, form a judgment of them, it is at present behind all the arts.

Opposites are cures for opposites.

Let food be thy your medicine

I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous.

Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm.

Some patients, though conscious that their condition is perilous, recover their health simply through their contentment with the goodness of the physician.

The function of protecting and developing health must rank even above that of restoring it when it is impaired.

In acute diseases the physician must conduct his inquiries in the following way. First he must examine the face of the patient, and see whether it is like the faces of healthy people, and especially whether it is like its usual self. Such likeness will be the best sign, and the greatest unlikeness will be the most dangerous sign. The latter will be as follows. Nose sharp, eyes hollow, temples sunken, ears cold and contracted with their lobes turned outwards, the skin about the face hard and tense and parched, the colour of the face as a whole being yellow or black.

It is believed by experienced doctors that the heat which oozes out of the hand, on being applied to the sick, is highly salutary. It has often appeared, while I have been soothing my patients, as if there was a singular property in my hands to pull and draw away from the affected parts aches and diverse impurities, by laying my hand upon the place, and extending my fingers toward it. Thus it is known to some of the learned that health may be implanted in the sick by certain gestures, and by contact, as some diseases may be communicated from one to another.

Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a mater of opportunity.

The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different.

To do nothing is also a good remedy.

Medicine in its present state is, it seems to me, by now completely discovered, insofar as it teaches in each instance the particular details and the correct measures. For anyone who has an understanding of medicine in this way depends very little upon good luck, but is able to do good with or without luck. For the whole of medicine has been established, and the excellent principles discovered in it clearly have very little need of good luck.

Your foods shall be your 'remedies,' and your 'remedies' shall be your foods.

And if this were so in all cases, the principle would be established, that sometimes conditions can be treated by things opposite to those from which they arose, and sometimes by things like to those from which they arose.

Conclusions which are merely verbal cannot bear fruit, only those do which are based on demonstrated fact. For affirmation and talk are deceptive and treacherous. Wherefore one must hold fast to facts in generalizations also, and occupy oneself with facts persistently, if one is to acquire that ready and infallible habit which we call the art of medicine.

Walking is a man's best medicine.

To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy.

Before you heal someone, ask him if he's willing to give up the things that make him sick.

Persons in whom a crisis takes place pass the night preceding the paroxysm uncomfortably, but the succeeding night generally more comfortably.

That which is used - develops. That which is not used wastes away.

A natural talent is required; for, when Nature opposes, everything else is in vain; but when Nature leads the way to what is most excellent, instruction in the art takes place, which the student must try to appropriate to himself by reflection, becoming an early pupil in a place well adapted for instruction. He must also bring to the task a love of labor and perseverance, so that the instruction taking root may bring forth proper and abundant fruits.

From nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations

To really know is science; to merely believe you know is ignorance.

What remains in diseases after the crisis is apt to produce relapses.

Both sleep and insomnolency, when immoderate, are bad.

All disease begins in the gut.

The art is long, life is short, opportunity fleeting, experiment dangerous, judgment difficult.

The life so short, the craft so long to learn.

And if incision of the temple is made on the left, spasm seizes the parts on the right, while if the incision is on the right, spasm seizes the parts on the left.

Wine is an appropriate article for mankind, both for the healthy body and for the ailing man.