Hippocrates, often called the “Father of Medicine,” was an ancient Greek physician born around 460 BCE on the island of Kos. He revolutionized the practice of medicine by shifting its focus from supernatural causes to natural explanations, laying the foundation for modern medical science. Hippocrates emphasized observation, clinical examination, and rational thinking in diagnosing and treating illnesses. His ethical code, the Hippocratic Oath, remains a cornerstone of medical ethics, emphasizing principles of patient confidentiality, beneficence, and non-maleficence. While many works have been attributed to him, it’s challenging to discern his actual contributions from later writings. Nevertheless, his influence on medicine persists, as his emphasis on the holistic approach to health and the importance of ethics continues to shape medical practice and education worldwide.
Hippocrates Quotes
1. “Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always.”
— Hippocrates
2. “Wherever the art of Medicine is loved, there is also a love of Humanity.”
— Hippocrates
3. “If you are not your own doctor, you are a fool.”
— Hippocrates
4. “The greatest medicine of all is teaching people how not to need it.”
— Hippocrates
5. “Walking is a man’s best medicine.”
— Hippocrates
6. “Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food.”
— Hippocrates
7. “The physician treats, but nature heals.”
— Hippocrates
8. “Sport is a preserver of health.”
— Hippocrates
9. “He who wishes to be a surgeon should go to war.”
— Hippocrates
10. “It’s far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has.”
— Hippocrates
11. “All disease starts in the gut.”
— Hippocrates
12. “The way to health is to have an aromatic bath and a scented massage every day.”
— Hippocrates
13. “Look well to the spine for the cause of disease.”
— Hippocrates
14. “A wise man ought to realize that health is his most valuable possession.”
— Hippocrates
15. “The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well.”
— Hippocrates
16. “Nature itself is the best physician.”
— Hippocrates
17. “The art is long, life is short.”
— Hippocrates
18. “Healing in a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.”
— Hippocrates
19. “Make a habit of two things: to help; or at least to do no harm.”
— Hippocrates
20. “Divine is the task to relieve pain.”
— Hippocrates
21. “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.”
— Hippocrates
22. “War is the only proper school of the surgeon.”
— Hippocrates
23. “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.”
— Hippocrates
24. “Our food should be our medicine and our medicine should be our food.”
— Hippocrates
25. “Before you heal someone, ask him if he’s willing to give up the things that make him sick.”
— Hippocrates
26. “Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease.”
— Hippocrates
27. “Anyone wishing to study medicine must master the art of massage.”
— Hippocrates
28. “Leave your drugs in the chemist’s pot if you can heal the patient with food.”
— Hippocrates
29. “The wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings. Let food be your medicine.”
— Hippocrates
30. “When in sickness, look to the spine first.”
— Hippocrates
31. “Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm.”
— Hippocrates
32. “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
33. “Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance.”
— Hippocrates
34. “Foolish the doctor who despises the knowledge acquired by the ancients.”
— Hippocrates
35. “To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy.”
— Hippocrates
36. “Just as food causes chronic disease, it can be the most powerful cure.”
— Hippocrates
37. “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.”
— Hippocrates
38. “Health is the greatest of human blessings.”
— Hippocrates
39. “Everything in excess is opposed to nature.”
— Hippocrates
40. “He who does not understand astrology is not a doctor but a fool.”
— Hippocrates
41. “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.”
— Hippocrates
42. “The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different.”
— Hippocrates
43. “Primum non nocere.”
— Hippocrates
44. “Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment uncertain, and judgment difficult.”
— Hippocrates
45. “There are in fact two things, science and opinion. The former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.”
— Hippocrates
46. “A physician without a knowledge of Astrology has no right to call himself a physician.”
— Hippocrates
47. “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.”
— Hippocrates
48. “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.”
— Hippocrates
49. “The function of protecting and developing health must rank even above that of restoring it when it is impaired.”
— Hippocrates
50. “Many admire, few know.”
— Hippocrates
51. “Some patients, though conscious that their condition is perilous, recover their health simply through their contentment with the goodness of the physician.”
— Hippocrates
52. “The life so short, the craft so long to learn.”
— Hippocrates
53. “Silence is not only never thirsty, but also never brings pain or sorrow.”
— Hippocrates
54. “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.”
— Hippocrates
55. “Rest as soon as there is pain.”
— Hippocrates
56. “That which is used – develops. That which is not used wastes away.”
— Hippocrates
57. “For extreme diseases, extreme methods of cure, as to restriction, are most suitable.”
— Hippocrates
58. “Sleep and watchfulness, both of them, when immoderate, constitute disease.”
— Hippocrates
59. “It’s more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has.”
— Hippocrates
60. “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.”
— Hippocrates
61. “Wine is an appropriate article for mankind, both for the healthy body and for the ailing man.”
— Hippocrates
62. “Get knowledge of the spine, for this is the requisite for many diseases.”
— Hippocrates
63. “There are, in effect, two things, to know and to believe one knows; to know is science; to believe one knows is ignorance.”
— Hippocrates
64. “Prayer indeed is good, but while calling on the gods a man should himself lend a hand.”
— Hippocrates
65. “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.”
— Hippocrates
66. “The patient must combat the disease along with the physician.”
— Hippocrates
67. “The human soul develops up to the time of death.”
— Hippocrates
68. “Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases.”
— Hippocrates
69. “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.”
— Hippocrates
70. “Time is that wherein there is opportunity, and opportunity is that wherein there is no great time.”
— Hippocrates
71. “A physician who is a lover of wisdom is the equal to a god.”
— Hippocrates
72. “In all abundance there is lack.”
— Hippocrates
73. “Look to the seasons when choosing your cures.”
— Hippocrates
74. “There is one common flow, one common breathing, all things are in sympathy.”
— Hippocrates
75. “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.”
— Hippocrates
76. “An insolent reply from a polite person is a bad sign.”
— Hippocrates
77. “We must turn to nature itself, to the observations of the body in health and in disease to learn the truth.”
— Hippocrates
78. “What medicines do not heal, the lance will; what the lance does not heal, fire will.”
— Hippocrates
79. “The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words.”
— Hippocrates
80. “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.”
— Hippocrates
81. “Physicians are many in title but very few in reality.”
— Hippocrates
82. “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.”
— Hippocrates
83. “Old people have fewer diseases than the young, but their diseases never leave them.”
— Hippocrates
84. “From nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations.”
— Hippocrates
85. “And he will manage the cure best who has foreseen what is to happen from the present state of matters.”
— Hippocrates
86. “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.”
— Hippocrates
87. “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
88. “Eunuchs do not take the gout, nor become bald.”
— Hippocrates
89. “The forms of diseases are many and the healing of them is manifold.”
— Hippocrates
90. “Of several remedies, the physician should choose the least sensational.”
— Hippocrates
91. “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.”
— Hippocrates
92. “When sleep puts an end to delirium, it is a good symptom.”
— Hippocrates
93. “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.”
— Hippocrates
94. “Where prayer, amulets and incantations work it is only a manifestation of the patient’s belief.”
— Hippocrates
95. “It is better to be full of drink than full of food.”
— Hippocrates
96. “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.”
— Hippocrates
97. “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
98. “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.”
— Hippocrates
99. “Opposites are cures for opposites.”
— Hippocrates
100. “The chief virtue that language can have is clarity.”
— Hippocrates
101. “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.”
— Hippocrates
102. “Sometimes give your services for nothing.”
— Hippocrates
103. “Who could have foretold, from the structure of the brain, that wine could derange its functions?”
— Hippocrates
104. “The physician must have at his command a certain ready wit, as dourness is repulsive both to the healthy and the sick.”
— Hippocrates
105. “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
106. “All excesses are inimical to Nature. It is safer to proceed a little at a time, especially when changing from one regimen to another.”
— Hippocrates
107. “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.”
— Hippocrates
108. “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.”
— Hippocrates
109. “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
110. “To really know is science; to merely believe you know is ignorance.”
— Hippocrates
111. “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.”
— Hippocrates
112. “Timidity betrays want of powers, and audacity a want of skill. There are, indeed, two things, knowledge and opinion, of which the one makes its possessor really to know, the other to be ignorant.”
— Hippocrates
113. “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.”
— Hippocrates
114. “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
115. “Both sleep and insomnolency, when immoderate, are bad.”
— Hippocrates
116. “I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion.”
— Hippocrates
117. “Persons who have a painful affection in any part of the body, and are in a great measure sensible of the pain, are disordered in intellect.”
— Hippocrates
118. “What remains in diseases after the crisis is apt to produce relapses.”
— Hippocrates
119. “I also maintain that clear knowledge of natural science must be acquired, in the first instance, through mastery of medicine alone.”
— Hippocrates
120. “When in a state of hunger, one ought not to undertake labor.”
— Hippocrates
121. “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.”
— Hippocrates
122. “But if they called everything divine which they do not understand, why there would be no end of divine things!”
— Hippocrates
123. “Persons in whom a crisis takes place pass the night preceding the paroxysm uncomfortably, but the succeeding night generally more comfortably.”
— Hippocrates
124. “In whatever disease sleep is laborious, it is a deadly symptom; but if sleep does good, it is not deadly.”
— Hippocrates
125. “In acute diseases it is not quite safe to prognosticate either death or recovery.”
— Hippocrates
126. “Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.”
— Hippocrates
127. “Life is short, art is long.”
— Hippocrates
