Hippocrates Quotes

Time is that wherein there is opportunity, and opportunity is that wherein there is no great time.

Foolish the doctor who despises the knowledge acquired by the ancients.

Primum non nocerum. (First do no harm)

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

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.

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

The body of man has in itself blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile; these make up the nature of this body, and through these he feels pain or enjoys health. Now he enjoys the most perfect health when these elements are duly proportioned to one another in respect of compounding, power and bulk, and when they are perfectly mingled.

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

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

Walking is a man's best medicine.

About medications that are drunk or applied to wounds it is worth learning from everyone; for people do not discover these by reasoning but by chance, and experts not more than laymen.

Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always.

It is most necessary to know the nature of the spine. One or more vertebrae may or may not go out of place very much and if they do, they are likely to produce serious complications and even death, if not properly adjusted. Many diseases are related to the spine.

All diseases begin in the gut.

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

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

Science begets knowledge; opinion, ignorance.

In all abundance there is lack.

War is the only proper school of the surgeon.

The physician treats, but nature heals.

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.

Prayer indeed is good, but while calling on the gods a man should himself lend a hand.

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.

He who wishes to be a surgeon should go to war.

For extreme illnesses extreme treatments are most fitting.

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.

Men ought to know that from the brain and from the brain only arise our pleasures, joys, laughter, and jests as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs and tears. ... It is the same thing which makes us mad or delirious, inspires us with dread and fear, whether by night or by day, brings us sleeplessness, inopportune mistakes, aimless anxieties, absent-mindedness and acts that are contrary to habit.

...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.

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.

All parts of the body which have a function, if used in moderation and exercised in labors 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.

An insolent reply from a polite person is a bad sign.

Look to the seasons when choosing your cures

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.

It is better to be full of drink than full of food.

Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases.

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.

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

What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself holding such things shameful to be spoken about.

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.

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.

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.

Walking is man's best medicine.

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.

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

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food

Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets.

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