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)
Death is the gateway to eternity.
The soul is the essence of life.
The purpose of existence is to know and worship God.
The world is a test.
The intellect is the means by which we understand the divine.
The human being is a journey towards perfection.
The soul, when it is separated from the body, is not destroyed, but rather it becomes more perfect and more active.
The existence of God is not a matter of faith, but a matter of logical necessity.
The world is eternal, and not created in time.
Prophecy is a natural phenomenon, not a supernatural one.
The human intellect is capable of attaining knowledge of all things, without the need for divine revelation.
The body is merely an instrument for the soul, and not its essence.
The universe operates according to fixed laws, and not by arbitrary divine intervention.
The ultimate goal of human life is to achieve intellectual perfection and union with the Active Intellect.
Miracles are not violations of natural law, but rather manifestations of hidden natural causes.
The existence of evil does not contradict the existence of an all-good God, as evil is a privation of good.
The physician must be a philosopher, for without philosophy, medicine is merely a craft.
The human body is a microcosm of the universe, and its health depends on the balance of its humors.
Disease is not a punishment from God, but a natural consequence of imbalances in the body.
The best medicine is prevention, and the best physician is nature itself.
Contemporaries of Avicenna (Ibn Sina)
Other Medicines born within 50 years of Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (980–1037).