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 existence of God is self-evident.
The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.
The human soul is a spiritual substance, not a material one.
The purpose of philosophy is to know the truth.
The intellect is the faculty by which we know the universal truths.
The senses are the windows of the soul.
The imagination is the faculty by which we form images of things that are not present to the senses.
The memory is the faculty by which we retain images of things that are no longer present to the senses.
The will is the faculty by which we choose to act or not to act.
The good is that which is desirable for its own sake.
The evil is that which is undesirable for its own sake.
Happiness is the ultimate goal of human life.
Virtue is a habit of the soul that disposes it to act in accordance with reason.
Vice is a habit of the soul that disposes it to act contrary to reason.
Justice is the virtue that disposes us to give to each person what is due to them.
Temperance is the virtue that disposes us to moderate our desires and passions.
Courage is the virtue that disposes us to face danger with firmness and resolution.
Wisdom is the virtue that disposes us to know the truth and to act in accordance with it.
The physician should be a philosopher, and the philosopher a physician.
The human body is a microcosm of the universe.
Contemporaries of Avicenna (Ibn Sina)
Other Medicines born within 50 years of Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (980–1037).