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