100 Quotes by Hippocrates
Hippocrates, often regarded as the "Father of Medicine," left an enduring legacy in the field of healthcare and scientific inquiry. In ancient Greece, he laid the foundation for a rational approach to medicine, moving away from supernatural explanations and emphasizing observation and empirical methods. The Hippocratic Oath, attributed to him, established ethical principles for medical practitioners that continue to influence the medical profession today. Hippocrates' emphasis on the connection between lifestyle, environment, and health marked a significant departure from prevailing beliefs of his time and paved the way for evidence-based medicine. His holistic approach to understanding health as a balance between body, mind, and environment remains a cornerstone of modern medical philosophy, underscoring the importance of treating patients as whole individuals.
Hippocrates Quotes
Let food be thy medicine. (Meaning)
Walking is man's best medicine. (Quote Meaning)
To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy. (Meaning)
Everything in excess is opposed to nature. (Quote Meaning)
There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance. (Meaning)
Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity. (Quote Meaning)
Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity. (Meaning)
Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease. (Quote Meaning)
Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience deceptive, judgment difficult. (Meaning)
The greatest medicine of all is teaching people how not to need it. (Quote Meaning)
It's more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has. (Meaning)
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. (Quote Meaning)
It is time which imparts strength to all things and brings them to maturity. (Meaning)
For extreme diseases, extreme methods of cure, as to restriction, are most suitable. (Quote Meaning)
The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different. (Meaning)
The body of man has in itself blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile; these make up the nature of the body. (Quote Meaning)
Many admire, few know. (Meaning)
Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food. (Quote Meaning)
For where there is love of man, there is also love of the art. (Meaning)
Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm. (Quote Meaning)
Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance. (Meaning)
If you are not your own doctor, you are a fool. (Quote Meaning)
Make a habit of two things: to help; or at least to do no harm. (Meaning)
Our food should be our medicine and our medicine should be our food. (Quote Meaning)
Health is the greatest of human blessings. (Meaning)
All disease starts in the gut. (Quote Meaning)
The physician treats, but nature heals. (Meaning)
It's far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has. (Quote Meaning)
Walking is a man's best medicine. (Meaning)
A physician without a knowledge of Astrology has no right to call himself a physician. (Quote Meaning)
Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always. (Meaning)
Nature itself is the best physician. (Quote Meaning)
Sport is a preserver of health. (Meaning)
All diseases begin in the gut. (Quote Meaning)
When in sickness, look to the spine first. (Meaning)
He who wishes to be a surgeon should go to war. (Quote Meaning)
All disease begins in the gut. (Meaning)
Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food (Quote Meaning)
Look well to the spine for the cause of disease. (Meaning)
Sometimes give your services for nothing. (Quote Meaning)
The life so short, the craft so long to learn. (Meaning)
Life is short, the art long. (Quote Meaning)
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.
The greatest medicine of all is teaching people how not to need it
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.
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.
All disease starts in the gut.
Our food should be our medicine and our medicine should be our food.
It's far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has.
If you are not your own doctor, you are a fool.
Positive health requires a knowledge of man's primary constitution and of the powers of various foods, both those natural to them and those resulting from human skill. But eating alone is not enough for health. There must also be exercise, of which the effects must likewise be known. The combination of these two things makes regimen, when proper attention is given to the season of the year, the changes of the wind, the age of the individual, and the situation of his home. If there is any deficiency in food or exercise, the body will fall sick.
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.
Make a habit of two things: to help; or at least to do no harm.
The physician treats, but nature heals.
The way to health is to have an aromatic bath and a scented massage every day.
Wherever the art of Medicine is loved, there is also a love of Humanity.
The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well.
Leave your drugs in the chemist's pot if you can heal the patient with food.
Walking is a man's best medicine.
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.
Just as food causes chronic disease, it can be the most powerful cure
Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always.
The function of protecting and developing health must rank even above that of restoring it when it is impaired.
We must turn to nature itself, to the observations of the body in health and in disease to learn the truth.
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.
Health is the greatest of human blessings.
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.
Your foods shall be your 'remedies,' and your 'remedies' shall be your foods.
"Declare the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future; practice these acts.
As to diseases, make a habit of two things--to help, or at least to do no harm."
The wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings. Let food be your medicine.
Foolish the doctor who despises the knowledge acquired by the ancients.
Get knowledge of the spine, for this is the requisite for many diseases
Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food
Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease.
Sport is a preserver of health.
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.
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 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.
The chief virtue that language can have is clarity.
Anyone wishing to study medicine must master the art of massage.
Healing in a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.
Rest as soon as there is pain.
A physician without a knowledge of Astrology has no right to call himself a physician.
Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm.
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.
All disease begins in the gut.
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.
All diseases begin in the gut.
Everything in excess is opposed to nature.
Nature itself is the best physician.
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 wholly incurable.
A wise man ought to realize that health is his most valuable possession.
There are in fact two things, science and opinion. The former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.
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.
To really know is science; to merely believe you know is ignorance.
It is more important to know the person who has the condition than it is to know the condition the person has.
Look well to the spine for the cause of disease.
Physicians are many in title but very few in reality.
Opposites are cures for opposites.
To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy.
Some patients, though conscious that their condition is perilous, recover their health simply through their contentment with the goodness of the physician.
He who wishes to be a surgeon should go to war.
The patient must combat the disease along with the physician.
Wine is an appropriate article for mankind, both for the healthy body and for the ailing man.
The dignity of a physician requires that he should look healthy, and as plump as nature intended him to be; for the common crowd consider those who are not of this excellent bodily condition to be unable to take care of themselves.
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.
Things that are holy are revealed only to men who are holy.
I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion.
Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food.
That which is used - develops. That which is not used wastes away.
Divine is the task to relieve pain
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 natural force within each of us is that greatest healer of all.
From nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations
Prayer indeed is good, but while calling on the gods a man should himself lend a hand.
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".
Sleep and watchfulness, both of them, when immoderate, constitute disease.
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.
Declare the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future.
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.
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.
The human soul develops up to the time of death.
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.
Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance.
Eunuchs do not take the gout, nor become bald.
All excesses are inimical to Nature. It is safer to proceed a little at a time, especially when changing from one regimen to another.
Old people have fewer diseases than the young, but their diseases never leave them.
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.
He who does not understand astrology is not a doctor but a fool.
And he will manage the cure best who has foreseen what is to happen from the present state of matters.
Walking is man's best medicine.
When in sickness, look to the spine first.
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.
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.
Idleness and lack of occupation tend - nay are dragged - towards evil.
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.
Where there is love of medicine, there is love of humankind.
Who could have foretold, from the structure of the brain, that wine could derange its functions?
The forms of diseases are many and the healing of them is manifold.
Wherefore the heart and the diaphragm are particularly sensitive, they have nothing to do, however, with the operations of the understanding, but of all these the brain is the cause.
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.
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.
Sometimes give your services for nothing.
An insolent reply from a polite person is a bad sign.
Many admire, few know.
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.
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.
It is better to be full of drink than full of food.
The human body contains blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. These are the things that make up its constitution and cause its pain and health. Health is primarily that state in which these constituent substances are in the correct proportion to each other, both in strength and quantity, and are well mixed.
Silence is not only never thirsty, but also never brings pain or sorrow.
Look to the seasons when choosing your cures
Where prayer, amulets and incantations work it is only a manifestation of the patient's belief.
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.
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.
Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment uncertain, and judgment difficult.
Of several remedies, the physician should choose the least sensational.
I also maintain that clear knowledge of natural science must be acquired, in the first instance, through mastery of medicine alone.
The physician must have at his command a certain ready wit, as dourness is repulsive both to the healthy and the sick.
The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words.
Science begets knowledge; opinion, ignorance.
Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases.
What medicines do not heal, the lance will; what the lance does not heal, fire will.
The life so short, the craft so long to learn.
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.
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.
A physician who is a lover of wisdom is the equal to a god.
In all abundance there is lack.
Time is that wherein there is opportunity, and opportunity is that wherein there is no great time.
It is changes that are chiefly responsible for diseases, especially the greatest changes, the violent alterations both in the seasons and in other things. (:)...regimen and temperature, and one period of life to another.
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.
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.
Life is short, the art long.
There are, in effect, two things, to know and to believe one knows; to know is science; to believe one knows is ignorance.
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.
War is the only proper school of the surgeon.
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.
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.
There is one common flow, one common breathing, all things are in sympathy.
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.
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.
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.
For extreme diseases, extreme methods of cure, as to restriction, are most suitable.
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.
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.
― Hippocrates Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
