Hippocrates Quotes

79 Sourced Quotes

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hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge holding such things to be holy secrets.

Hippocrates
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.

Hippocrates
The patient must combat the disease along with the physician.

Hippocrates
Whoever is to acquire a competent knowledge of medicine, ought to be possessed of the following advantages: a natural disposition; instructionl a favorable place for the study; early tuition, love of labor; leisure.

Hippocrates
Some patients, though conscious that their condition is perilous, recover their health simply through their contentment with the goodness of the physician.

Hippocrates
Philiscus... too to bed on the first day of acute fever.... About the middle of the sixth day he died. The respiration throughout, like that of a person recollecting himself.

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

Hippocrates
In treating fractures and dislocations, the physician must make the extension as straight as possible, for this is the most natural direction. But if it inclines to either side, it should rather turn to that of pronation, for there is thus less harm than if it be towards supination.

Hippocrates
The excrement is best which is soft and consistent, is passed at the hour which was customary to the patient when in health, in quantity proportionate to the ingesta; for when the passages are such, the lower belly is in a healthy state.

Hippocrates
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.

Hippocrates
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.

Hippocrates
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.

Hippocrates
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.

Hippocrates
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 far behind all the other arts. Their mistake appears to me to arise principally from this, that in the cities there is no punishment connected with the practice of medicine (and with it alone) except disgrace, and that does not hurt those who are familiar with it. Such persons are like the figures which are introduced in tragedies, for as they have the shape, and dress, and personal appearance of an actor, but are not actors, so also physicians are many in title but very few in reality.

Hippocrates
With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art.

Hippocrates
Extreme remedies are most appropriate for extreme diseases.

Hippocrates
While I continue to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times! But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot!

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

Hippocrates
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.

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

Hippocrates
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.

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

Hippocrates
Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and, further from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves.

Hippocrates
Time is that wherein there is opportunity, and opportunity is that wherein there is no great time. Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity. However, knowing this, one must attend to medical practice not primarily to plausible theories, but to experience combined with reason. For a theory is a composite memory of things apprehended with sense perception.

Hippocrates
Medicine is the most distinguished of all the arts, but through the ignorance of those who practice it, and of those who casually judge such practitioners, it is now of all the arts by far the least esteemed.

Hippocrates
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.

Hippocrates
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.

Hippocrates
The physician must have at his command a certain ready wit, as dourness is repulsive both to the healthy and the sick.

Hippocrates
The forms of diseases are many and the healing of them is manifold.

Hippocrates
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.

Hippocrates