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.

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

The highest degree of a medicine is Love.

Nature also forges man, now a gold man, now a silver man, now a fig man, now a bean man.

Man is ill because he is never still.

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

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.