Hippocrates — "It is health that is the real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver."
It is health that is the real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.
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More from Hippocrates
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Details
A statement on the true value of health over material possessions.
Date: c. 460-370 BCE
Money & BusinessVerification
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Found in 1 providers: gemini
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Understanding this quote
What it means
True wealth is your body's wellbeing, not material possessions. Money can be taken, lost, or spent, but a healthy body enables everything else in life. Without health, gold and silver are useless because you lack the vitality to enjoy or use them. This reframes prosperity entirely around physical condition rather than financial status.
Relevance to Hippocrates
As the Father of Medicine practicing in ancient Greece, Hippocrates spent his life treating the sick and codifying medical knowledge. He witnessed firsthand how illness stripped powerful, wealthy individuals of all capacity to function. His entire career was built on the premise that preserving health was humanity's highest practical priority, making this statement his professional and philosophical core conviction.
The era
In ancient Greece around 400 BCE, most people had no access to reliable medicine, clean water systems were primitive, and disease could devastate entire cities. Wealth meant grain, livestock, and trade goods, yet plague and infection killed rich and poor alike. Hippocrates was establishing medicine as a rational discipline, arguing that systematic health preservation mattered more than any material accumulation a person could achieve.
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