Hippocrates Quotes - Page 3

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

Divine is the task to relieve pain

Any man who is intelligent must, on considering that health is of the utmost value to human beings, have the personal understanding necessary to help himself in diseases, and be able to understand and to judge what physicians say and what they administer to his body, being versed in each of these matters to a degree reasonable for a layman.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Where there is love of medicine, there is love of humankind.

Declare the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future; practice these acts. As to diseases, make a habit of two things--to help, or at least to do no harm.

Walking is man's best medicine.

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

Opposites are cures for opposites.

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

I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrongdoing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly, I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art.

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.

The human soul develops up to the time of death.

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.

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

He who does not understand astrology is not a doctor but a fool.

Male and female have the power to fuse into one solid, both because both are nourished in both and also because soul is the same thing in all living creatures, although the body of each is different.

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.

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

Those diseases which medicines do not cure, iron cures; those which iron cannot cure, fire cures; and those which fire cannot cure, are to be reckoned wholly incurable.

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food