Hippocrates' Life Lessons Quotes you should know Before you Get Old

Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always. Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity. The greatest medicine of all is teaching people how not to need it. If you are not your own doctor, you are a fool. Walking is a man's best medicine. Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food. Sport is a preserver of health. The physician treats, but nature heals. He who wishes to be a surgeon should go to war. It's far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has. The way to health is to have an aromatic bath and a scented massage every day. Look well to the spine for the cause of disease. All disease starts in the gut. A wise man ought to realize that health is his most valuable possession. The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. Nature itself is the best physician. The art is long, life is short. Healing in a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity. Make a habit of two things, to help or at least to do no harm. War is the only proper school of the surgeon. Divine is the task to relieve pain. If someone wishes for good health, one must first ask oneself if he is ready to do away with the reasons for his illness. Only then is it possible to help him. Our food should be our medicine, and our medicine should be our food. Anyone wishing to study medicine must master the art of massage. Illnesses do not come upon us out of the blue. They are developed from small daily sins against nature. When enough sins have accumulated, illnesses will suddenly appear. Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease. Leave your drugs in the chemist's pot if you can heal the patient with food. When in sickness, look to the spine first. The wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings. Let food be your medicine. Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm. Men ought to know that from the brain, and from the brain only, arise our pleasures, joy, laughter, and jests, as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs, and tears. Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance. Foolish the doctor who despises the knowledge acquired by the ancients. Before you heal someone, ask him if he's willing to give up the things that make him sick. To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy. Just as food causes chronic disease, it can be the most powerful cure. The soul is the same in all living creatures. Although the body of each is different. 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. Men think epilepsy divine, really because they do not understand it. We will one day understand what causes it, and then cease to call it divine. And so it is with everything in the universe. Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment uncertain, and judgment difficult. Everything in excess is opposed to nature. He who does not understand astrology is not a doctor, but a fool. There are in fact two things, science and opinion. The former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance. Health is the greatest of human blessings. A physician without a knowledge of astrology has no right to call himself a physician. The function of protecting and developing health must rank even above that of restoring it when it is impaired. Many admire, few know. Some patients, though conscious that their condition is perilous, recover their health simply through their contentment with the goodness of the physician. The life so short, the craft so long to learn. 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 holy and curable. Rest as soon as there is pain. For extreme diseases, extreme methods of cure, as to restriction, are most suitable. That which is used, develops. That which is not used, wastes away. 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. Get knowledge of the spine, for this is the requisite for many diseases. Wind is an appropriate article for mankind, both for the healthy body and for the ailing man. Silence is not only never thirsty, but also never brings pain or sorrow. Sleep and watchfulness, both of them, when immoderate, constitute disease. It's more important to know what sort of person has a disease, than to know what sort of disease a person has. Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases. There are, in effect, two things, to know and to believe one knows. To know is science, to believe one knows is ignorance. 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. The patient must combat the disease along with the physician. The human soul develops up to the time of death. In all abundance there is lack. An insolent reply from a polite person is a bad sign. Time is that wherein there is opportunity, and opportunity is that wherein there is no great time. The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words. Prayer indeed is good, but while calling on the gods a man should himself lend a hand. A physician who is a lover of wisdom is the equal to a god. Old people have fewer diseases than the young, but their diseases never leave them. There is one common flow, one common breathing, all things are in sympathy. From nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations. And he will manage the cure best who has foreseen what is to happen from the present state of matters. What medicines do not heal, the lance will, what the lance does not heal, fire will. We must turn to nature itself, to the observations of the body in health and in disease to learn the truth. Eunuchs do not take the gout, nor become bald. The forms of diseases are many and the healing of them is manifold. Physicians are many in title, but very few in reality. Of several remedies, the physician should choose the least sensational. Where prayer, amulets, and incantations work it is only a manifestation of the patient's belief. It is better to be full of drink than full of food. Look to the seasons when choosing your cures. When sleep puts an end to delirium, it is a good symptom. Sometimes give your services for nothing. The physician must have at his command a certain ready wit, as darkness is repulsive both to the healthy and the sick. Who could have foretold, from the structure of the brain, that wine could derange its functions? All excesses are inimical to nature. It is safer to proceed a little at a time, especially when changing from one regimen to another. Opposites are cures for opposites. To really know is science, to merely believe you know is ignorance. The chief virtue that language can have is clarity. Both sleep and insomnolency, when immoderate, are bad. I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. What remains in diseases after the crisis is apt to produce relapses. I also maintain that clear knowledge of natural science must be acquired in the first instance through mastery of medicine alone. Life is short, art is long. When in a state of hunger, one ought not to undertake labor.