Paracelsus Quotes

Women's regular bleeding engenders phantoms.

If we want to make a statement about a man's nature on the basis of his physiognomy, we must take everything into account; it is in his distress that a man is tested, for then his nature is revealed.

That which lives on reason lives against the spirit.

Medicine rests upon four pillars - philosophy, astronomy, alchemy, and ethics. The first pillar is the philosophical knowledge of earth and water; the second, astronomy, supplies its full understanding of that which is of fiery and airy nature; the third is an adequate explanation of the properties of all the four elements - that is to say, of the whole cosmos - and an introduction into the art of their transformations; and finally, the fourth shows the physician those virtues which must stay with him up until his death, and it should support and complete the three other pillars.

What the eyes perceive in herbs or stones or trees is not yet a remedy; the eyes see only the dross.

Know that the philosopher has power over the stars, and not the stars over him.

The human body is vapor materialized by sunshine mixed with the life of the stars.

Medicine is not merely a science but an art. The character of the physician may act more powerfully upon the patient than the drugs employed.

Fasting is the greatest remedy
the physician within.

For one country is different from another; its earth is different, as are its stones, wines, bread, meat, and everything that grows and thrives in a specific region.

Europe shall be the head, Asia the crown, but Africa shall be the jewel.

"Another Prognostication by Theophrastus Paracelsus

The spirit is the master; imagination the tool, and the body the plastic material ... The power of the imagination is a great factor in medicine. It may produce diseases in man and in animals, and it may cure them ..Ills of the body may be cured by physical remedies or by the power of the spirit acting through the soul.

Thoughts are free and subject to no rule. On them rests the freedom of man, and they tower above the light of nature ... create a new heaven, a new firmament, a new source of energy from which new arts flow.

The art of medicine has its roots in the heart.

It would be an error to try to build the Kingdom of Heaven upon envy. For nothing that is founded on envy can thrive; it must have another root.

All arts lie in man, though not all are apparent. Awakening brings them out. To be taught is nothing; everything is in man waiting to be awakened.

Let no one who can be his own belong to another.

We do not know it because we are fooling away our time with outward and perishing things, and are asleep in regard to that which is real within ourself.

But is not He who created it for the sake of the sick body more than the remedy? And is not He who cures the soul, which is more than the body, greater?

What we should be after death, we have to attain in life, i.e. holiness and bliss. Here on earth the Kingdom of God begins.

All that man needs for health and healing has been provided by God in nature, the Challenge of science is to find it.

The main reason for healing is love.

This process is alchemy: its founder is the smith Vulcan.

Often the remedy is deemed the highest good because it helps so many.

For it is we who must pray for our daily bread, and if He grants it to us, it is only through our labour, our skill and preparation.

Consider that we shouldn't call our brother a fool, since we don't know ourselves what we are.

Some children are born from heaven and others are born from hell, because each human being has his inherent tendencies, and these tendencies belong to his spirit, and indicate the state in which he existed before he was born.

And it is true, best is nothing concealed which shall not be discovered; for which cause a marvellous being shall come after me, who as yet lives not, and who shall reveal many things.

Man is a microcosm, or a little world, because he is an extract from all the stars and planets of the whole firmament, from the earth and the elements; and so he is their quintessence.

Every physician must be rich in knowledge, and not only of that which is written in books; his patients should be his book, they will never mislead him.

This is alchemy, and this is the office of Vulcan; he is the apothecary and chemist of the medicine.

It is said that a wise man rules over the stars, but this does not mean that he rules over the influences which come from the stars in the sky. It means that he rules over the powers which exist in his own constitution.

Dreams are not without meaning wherever thay may come from-from fantasy, from the elements, or from other inspiration.

As you talk, so is your heart.

Could we but rightly comprehend the mind of man, nothing would be impossible to us upon the earth.

There is an earthly sun, which is the cause of all heat, and all who are able to see may see the sun; and those who are blind and cannot see him may feel his heat. There is an Eternal Sun, which is the source of all wisdom, and those whose spiritual senses have awakened to life will see that sun and be conscious of His existence; but those who have not attained spiritual consciousness may yet feel His power by an inner faculty which is called Intuition.

The universities do not teach all things ... so a doctor must seek out old wives, gypsies, sorcerers, wandering tribes, old robbers, and such outlaws and take lessons from them. A doctor must be a traveller ... Knowledge is experience.

Death is the midwife of very great things ... It brings about the birth and rebirth of forms a thousand times improved. This is the highest mystery of God.

There is in each person, in every animal, bird and plant a star which mirrors, matches or is in some sense the same as a star in the heavens.

All numbers are multiples of one, all sciences converge to a common point, all wisdom comes out of one center, and the number of wisdom is one.

One who lives within reason lives without the spirit

All things are poisons. It is simply the dose that distinguishes between a poison and a remedy.

It should be forbidden and severely punished to remove cancer by cutting, burning, cautery, and other fiendish tortures. It is from nature that the disease comes, and from nature comes the cure, not from physicians.

The ultimate cause of human disease is the consequence of our transgression of the universal laws of life.

The art of medicine cannot be inherited, nor can it be copied from books

The dreams which reveal the supernatural are promises and messages that God sends us directly: they are nothing but His angels, His ministering spirits, who usually appear to us when we are in a great predicament.

The right dose differentiates a poison from a remedy

A mortal lives not through that breath that flows in and that flows out. The source of his life is another and this causes the breath to flow.

All drugs are poisons the benefit depends on the dosage.

The interpretation of dreams is a great art.

Magic has power to experience and fathom things which are inaccessible to human reason. For magic is a great secret wisdom, just as reason is a great public folly.

All things are poisons, for there is nothing without poisonous qualities. It is only the dose which makes a thing poison.

The dose makes the poison...

The highest degree of a medicine is Love.

The most secure method, to ruin your health, is a SICK BED!

From time immemorial artistic insights have been revealed to artists in their sleep and in dreams, so that at all times they ardently desired them.

Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest. (Let no man belong to another that can belong to himself.)

Everything is a poison, nothing is a poison.
It is the dose that makes the poison

All our nourishment becomes ourselves; we eat ourselves into being ... For every bite we take contains in itself all our organs, all that is included in the whole man, all of which he is constituted ... We do not eat bone, blood vessels, ligaments, and seldom brain, heart, and entrails, nor fat, therefore bone does not make bone, nor brain make brain, but every bite contains all these. Bread is blood, but who sees it? It is fat, who sees it? ... for the master craftsman in the stomach is good. He can make iron out of brimstone: he is there daily and shapes the man according to his form.

Once a disease has entered the body, all parts which are healthy must fight it: not one alone, but all. Because a disease might mean their common death. Nature knows this; and Nature attacks the disease with whatever help she can muster.

Many have said of Alchemy, that it is for the making of gold and silver. For me such is not the aim, but to consider only what virtue and power may lie in medicines.

The book of Nature is that which the physician must read; and to do so he must walk over the leaves.

Medicine is not only a science; it is also an art. It does not consist of compounding pills and plasters; it deals with the very processes of life, which must be understood before they may be guided.

Be not another, if you can be yourself.

Time is a brisk wind, for each hour it brings something new ... but who can understand and measure its sharp breath, its mystery and its design?