Hippocrates quotes:

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.

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.

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

Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease.

Walking is man's best medicine.

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

The art is long, life is short.

Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm.

Keep a watch also on the faults of the patients, which often make them lie about the taking of things prescribed.

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

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...

Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always.

Life is short, the art long.

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.

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

A physician without a knowledge of Astrology has no right to call himself a physician.

The life so short, the craft so long to learn.

To do nothing is also a good remedy.

The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words.

Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity.

Everything in excess is opposed to nature.

What medicines do not heal, the lance will; what the lance does not heal, fire will.

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

Where prayer, amulets and incantations work it is only a manifestation of the patient's belief.

The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different.

If for the sake of a crowded audience you do wish to hold a lecture, your ambition is no laudable one, and at least avoid all citations from the poets, for to quote them argues feeble industry.

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

I have clearly recorded this: for one can learn good lessons also from what has been tried but clearly has not succeeded, when it is clear why it has not succeeded.

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

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."

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.

Men think epilepsy divine, merely 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.

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

Everyone has a doctor in him or her; we just have to help it in its work. The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food. But to eat when you are sick, is to feed your sickness.

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.

Eunuchs do not take the gout, nor become bald.

Make a habit of two things: to help; or at least to do no harm.

The art is long, life is short

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

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.

Our food should be our medicine and our medicine should be our food.

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food

The wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings. Let food be your medicine.

The brain of man, like that of all animals is double, being parted down its centre by a thin membrane. For this reason pain is not always felt in the same part of the head, but sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other, and occasionally all over.

The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well.

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.

Those things which are sacred, are to be imparted only to sacred persons; and it is not lawful to import them to the profane until they have been initiated in the mysteries of the science.

Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases.

Everything in excess is opposed to nature

A physician without a knowledge of Astrology has no right to call himself a physician

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.

Everything in excess Is opposed by nature.

People think that epilepsy is divine simply because they don't have any idea what causes epilepsy. But I believe that someday we will understand what causes epilepsy, and at that moment, we will cease to believe that it's divine. And so it is with everything in the universe

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

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

Through seven figures come sensations for a man; there is hearing for sounds, sight for the visible, nostril for smell, tongue for pleasant or unpleasant tastes, mouth for speech, body for touch, passages outwards and inwards for hot or cold breath. Through these come knowledge or lack of it.

A wise man ought to realize that health is his most valuable possession.

Walking is a man's best medicine.

The chief virtue that language can have is clarity.

It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has.

...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.

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, which the student must try to appropriate to himself by reflection, becoming an early pupil in a place well adapted for instruction. He must also bring to the task a love of labor and perseverance, so that the instruction taking root may bring forth proper and abundant fruits.

A physician who is a lover of wisdom is the equal to a god.

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.

All disease begins in the gut.

All disease starts in the gut.

All diseases begin in the gut.

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

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

And he will manage the cure best who has foreseen what is to happen from the present state of matters.

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.

And if this were so in all cases, the principle would be established, that sometimes conditions can be treated by things opposite to those from which they arose, and sometimes by things like to those from which they arose.

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.

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

But medicine has long had all its means to hand, and has discovered both a principle and a method, through which the discoveries made during a long period are many and excellent, while full discovery will be made, if the inquirer be competent, conduct his researches with knowledge of the discoveries already made, and make them his starting-point. But anyone who, casting aside and rejecting all these means, attempts to conduct research in any other way or after another fashion, and asserts that he has found out anything, is and has been victim of deception.

Conclusions which are merely verbal cannot bear fruit, only those do which are based on demonstrated fact. For affirmation and talk are deceptive and treacherous. Wherefore one must hold fast to facts in generalizations also, and occupy oneself with facts persistently, if one is to acquire that ready and infallible habit which we call "the art of medicine.

Correct is to recognize what diseases are and whence they come; which are long and which are short; which are mortal and which are not; which are in the process of changing into others; which are increasing and which are diminishing; which are major and which are minor; to treat the diseases that can be treated, but to recognize the ones that cannot be, and to know why they cannot be; by treating patients with the former, to give them the benefit of treatment as far as it is possible.

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

Divine is the task to relieve pain

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.

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.

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...

For extreme diseases, extreme methods of cure, as to restriction, are most suitable.

For extreme illnesses extreme treatments are most fitting.

For where there is love of man, there is also love of the art.

Get knowledge of the spine, for this is the requisite for many diseases

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

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

Health is the greatest of human blessings.

I also maintain that clear knowledge of natural science must be acquired, in the first instance, through mastery of medicine alone.

I am about to discuss the disease called 'sacred'. It is not, in my opinion, any more divine or more sacred that other diseases, but has a natural cause, and its supposed divine origin is due to men's inexperience, and to their wonder at its peculiar character.

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.

I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous.

I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion.

I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion.

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.

Idleness and lack of occupation tend - nay are dragged - towards evil....

If you are not your own doctor, you are a fool.

In acute diseases the physician must conduct his inquiries in the following way. First he must examine the face of the patient, and see whether it is like the faces of healthy people, and especially whether it is like its usual self. Such likeness will be the best sign, and the greatest unlikeness will be the most dangerous sign. The latter will be as follows. Nose sharp, eyes hollow, temples sunken, ears cold and contracted with their lobes turned outwards, the skin about the face hard and tense and parched, the colour of the face as a whole being yellow or black.

In all abundance there is lack.

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.

It is believed by experienced doctors that the heat which oozes out of the hand, on being applied to the sick, is highly salutary. It has often appeared, while I have been soothing my patients, as if there was a singular property in my hands to pull and draw away from the affected parts aches and diverse impurities, by laying my hand upon the place, and extending my fingers toward it. Thus it is known to some of the learned that health may be implanted in the sick by certain gestures, and by contact, as some diseases may be communicated from one to another.

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.

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

It is more important to know the person who has the condition than it is to know the condition the person has.

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.

It's far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has.

Just as food causes chronic disease, it can be the most powerful cure

Leave your drugs in the chemist's pot if you can heal the patient with food.

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

Life is short and the art long.

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.

Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment uncertain, and judgment difficult.

Look to the seasons when choosing your cures

Look well to the spine for the cause of disease.

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

Many admire, few know.

Medicine in its present state is, it seems to me, by now completely discovered, insofar as it teaches in each instance the particular details and the correct measures. For anyone who has an understanding of medicine in this way depends very little upon good luck, but is able to do good with or without luck. For the whole of medicine has been established, and the excellent principles discovered in it clearly have very little need of good luck.

Medicine is of all the Arts the most noble; but, owing to the ignorance of those who practice it, and of those who, inconsiderately, form a judgment of them, it is at present behind all the arts.

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.