Hippocrates Quotes

79 Sourced Quotes

The prime object of the physician in the whole art of medicine should be to cure that which is diseased; and if this can be accomplished in various ways, the least troublesome should be selected; for this is more becoming a good man, and one well skilled in the art, who does not covet popular coin of base alloy.

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

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

Hippocrates
When in acute fevers, pneumonia, phrenitis, or headache, the hands are waved before the face, hunting through empty space, as if gathering bits of straw, picking the nap from the coverlet, or tearing chaff from the wall — all such symptoms are bad and deadly.

Hippocrates
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.

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hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge holding such things to be holy secrets.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