Avicenna (Ibn Sina)
A polymath whose 'The Canon of Medicine' was a standard medical text for centuries and integrated Greek and Indian medical traditions.
Most quoted
"Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials."
— from The Canon of Medicine
"Medicine is a science from which one learns the states of the human body in health and disease, in order to preserve health when it exists and restore it when it has been lost."
— from The Canon of Medicine (Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb)
"The more you study, the more you learn. The more you learn, the more you forget. The more you forget, the less you know. So why study?"
— from Attributed, often as a humorous paradox
All quotes by Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (356)
The disease of the soul is ignorance.
He who knows himself knows his Lord.
The intellect is the light of the soul.
The more you study, the more you learn. The more you learn, the more you forget. The more you forget, the less you know. So why study?
I have wasted my life in the pursuit of knowledge, and all I have found is ignorance.
The mind is like a garden. If you do not cultivate it, weeds will grow.
The physician must be a friend to the patient, a father to the sick, and a servant to the poor.
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.
I have traveled far and wide, and I have found that the greatest wonders are within ourselves.
The wise man speaks because he has something to say; the fool speaks because he has to say something.
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
The disease is not in the body, but in the mind.
To understand the world, you must first understand yourself.
The pen is the tongue of the mind.
I have learned more from my mistakes than from my successes.
The physician should be a master of all sciences, for all sciences contribute to the art of healing.
The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
The greatest gift you can give to others is the gift of your knowledge.
The wise man does not seek to conquer the world, but to conquer himself.
The knowledge of the soul is the knowledge of the self, and the knowledge of the self is the knowledge of God.
Contemporaries of Avicenna (Ibn Sina)
Other Medicines born within 50 years of Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (980–1037).