Hippocrates' Life Lessons you should know Before you Get Old

A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses. It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has. Keep a watch also on the faults of the patients, which often make them lie about the taking of things prescribed. The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words. 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. There are in fact two things, science and opinion, the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance. A physician without a knowledge of astrology has no right to call himself a physician. Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of operant unity. All parts of the body which have a function, if used in moderation and exercised in labours in which each is accustomed, become thereby healthy, well developed and age more slowly, but if unused they become liable to disease, defective in growth and age quickly. 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. Persons who have a painful affection in any part of the body, and are in a great measure sensible of the pain, are disordered in intellect. Cure sometimes, treat often and comfort always. Before you heal someone, ask him if he's willing to give up the things that make him sick. Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult. Make a habit of two things, to help, or at least to do no harm. Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm. Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance. What medicines do not heal, the lance will, what the lance does not heal, fire will. Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases. Persons in whom a crisis takes place pass the night preceding the paroxysm uncomfortably, but the succeeding night generally more comfortably. What remains in diseases after the crisis is apt to produce relapses. 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. When in a state of hunger, one ought not to undertake labor. Cure sometimes, treat often and comfort always. Avoid sex in old age, because at this age it is safer to use other sources of pleasure. In acute diseases it is not quite safe to prognosticate either death or a recovery. Burning yourself will always make you shine for other.