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 strength of the soul shows itself not in great things but in small ones.
A wise man is he who knows the relative value of things.
The physician should not treat the disease but the patient who is suffering from it.
There are no incurable diseases, only lack of will. There are no worthless herbs, only lack of knowledge.
The best wine is that which is old in the cask and young in the bottle.
The art of medicine is to amuse the patient while nature cures the disease.
When you combine things rightly, you discover the secrets of nature.
The stomach is the home of disease, and diet is the principal medicine.
The human body is one unified structure; an illness in one part affects the whole.
The aim of medicine is to prevent disease and prolong life; the ideal of medicine is to eliminate the need of a physician.
Time is a sword; if you do not cut it, it will cut you.
The physician must have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely, to do good and to do no harm.
The proof of the existence of the soul is that we are conscious of our own existence.
The universe is not the product of mere chance and randomness.
A man's worth is determined by his knowledge, not by his possessions.
The first step in the treatment of any disease is to remove its cause.
The soul is the perfection of a natural body possessing life in potentiality.
Music is the food of the soul; it has the power to heal and to harm.
The physician must be skilled in logic, so that he may understand the causes of disease.
The more you know, the more you realize how much you don't know.
Contemporaries of Avicenna (Ibn Sina)
Other Medicines born within 50 years of Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (980–1037).