Hippocrates of Kos, also known as Hippocrates II, was the greatest Greek physician of the Age of Pericles, who is regarded as the father of medicine. Great Hippocrates quotes will make you wiser by broadening your horizons to live life to the fullest.

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Most Famous Hippocrates Quotes

If someone wishes for good health, one must first ask oneself if he is ready to do away with the reasons for his illness. Only then is it possible to help him. – Hippocrates

The greatest medicine of all is teaching people how not to need it. – Hippocrates

Each of the substances of a man’s diet acts upon his body and changes it in some way and upon these changes his whole life depends. – Hippocrates

It is most necessary to know the nature of the spine. One or more vertebrae may or may not go out of place very much and if they do, they are likely to produce serious complications and even death, if not properly adjusted. Many diseases are related to the spine. – Hippocrates

The dignity of a physician requires that he should look healthy, and as plump as nature intended him to be; for the common crowd consider those who are not of this excellent bodily condition to be unable to take care of themselves. – Hippocrates

Make a habit of two things: to help; or at least to do no harm. – Hippocrates

A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses. – Hippocrates

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food – Hippocrates

Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity. – Hippocrates

What medicines do not heal, the lance will; what the lance does not heal, fire will. – Hippocrates

Keep a watch also on the faults of the patients, which often make them lie about the taking of things prescribed. – Hippocrates

Wherever the art of Medicine is loved, there is also a love of Humanity. – Hippocrates

There are in fact two things, science and opinion. The former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance. – Hippocrates

Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm. – Hippocrates

It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has. – Hippocrates

It’s far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has. – Hippocrates

If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health. – Hippocrates

The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words. – Hippocrates

The life so short, the craft so long to learn. – Hippocrates

A physician without a knowledge of Astrology has no right to call himself a physician. – Hippocrates

Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease. – Hippocrates

Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance. – Hippocrates

Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases. – Hippocrates

Prayer indeed is good, but while calling on the gods a man should himself lend a hand. – Hippocrates

Wine is an appropriate article for mankind, both for the healthy body and for the ailing man. – Hippocrates

For where there is love of man, there is also love of the art. – Hippocrates

The human body contains blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. These are the things that make up its constitution and cause its pain and health. Health is primarily that state in which these constituent substances are in the correct proportion to each other, both in strength and quantity, and are well mixed. – Hippocrates

Science begets knowledge; opinion, ignorance. – Hippocrates

I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. – Hippocrates

Where prayer, amulets and incantations work it is only a manifestation of the patient’s belief. – Hippocrates

There are, in effect, two things, to know and to believe one knows; to know is science; to believe one knows is ignorance. – Hippocrates

Men ought to know that from the brain, and from the brain only, arise our pleasures, joy, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs, and tears. – Hippocrates

Look to the seasons when choosing your cures – Hippocrates

Whoever wishes to investigate medicine should proceed thus: In the first place, consider the seasons of the year and what effect each of them produces. – Hippocrates

Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment uncertain, and judgment difficult. – Hippocrates

For extreme illnesses extreme treatments are most fitting. – Hippocrates

Sometimes give your services for nothing. – Hippocrates

The art has three factors, the disease, the patient, the physician. The physician is the servant of the art. The patient must cooperate with the physician in combatting the disease. – Hippocrates

The art is long, life is short – Hippocrates

Sleep and watchfulness, both of them, when immoderate, constitute disease. – Hippocrates

Walking is man’s best medicine. – Hippocrates

Those things which are sacred, are to be imparted only to sacred persons; and it is not lawful to import them to the profane until they have been initiated in the mysteries of the science. – Hippocrates

First of all a natural talent is required; for when Nature opposes, everything else is in vain; but when Nature leads the way to what is most excellent, instruction in the art takes place… – Hippocrates

There are some arts which to those that possess them are painful, but to those that use them are helpful, a common good to laymen, but to those that practise them grievous. Of such arts there is one which the Greeks call medicine. For the medical man sees terrible sights, touches unpleasant things, and the misfortunes of others bring a harvest of sorrows that are peculiarly his; but the sick by means of the art rid themselves of the worst of evils, disease, suffering, pain and death. – Hippocrates

And if this were so in all cases, the principle would be established, that sometimes conditions can be treated by things opposite to those from which they arose, and sometimes by things like to those from which they arose. – Hippocrates

About medications that are drunk or applied to wounds it is worth learning from everyone; for people do not discover these by reasoning but by chance, and experts not more than laymen. – Hippocrates

Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food. – Hippocrates

Fat people who want to reduce should take their exercise on an empty stomach and sit down to their food out of breath…. Thin people who want to get fat should do exactly the opposite and never take exercise on an empty stomach. – Hippocrates

Old people have fewer diseases than the young, but their diseases never leave them. – Hippocrates

When in sickness, look to the spine first. – Hippocrates

Life is short, science is long; opportunity is elusive, experiment is dangerous, judgement is difficult. – Hippocrates

Where there is love of medicine, there is love of humankind. – Hippocrates

Idleness and lack of occupation tend – nay are dragged – towards evil…. – Hippocrates

If for the sake of a crowded audience you do wish to hold a lecture, your ambition is no laudable one, and at least avoid all citations from the poets, for to quote them argues feeble industry. – Hippocrates

Conclusions which are merely verbal cannot bear fruit, only those do which are based on demonstrated fact. For affirmation and talk are deceptive and treacherous. Wherefore one must hold fast to facts in generalizations also, and occupy oneself with facts persistently, if one is to acquire that ready and infallible habit which we callthe art of medicine. – Hippocrates

A sensible man ought to think about that well being is the best of human blessings, and find out how by his personal thought to derive profit from his sicknesses. – Hippocrates

It is better to be full of drink than full of food. – Hippocrates

And he will manage the cure best who has foreseen what is to happen from the present state of matters. – Hippocrates

When doing everything according to indications, although things may not turn out agreeably to indication, we should not change to another while the original appearances remain. – Hippocrates

What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself holding such things shameful to be spoken about. – Hippocrates

But medicine has long had all its means to hand, and has discovered both a principle and a method, through which the discoveries made during a long period are many and excellent, while full discovery will be made, if the inquirer be competent, conduct his researches with knowledge of the discoveries already made, and make them his starting-point. But anyone who, casting aside and rejecting all these means, attempts to conduct research in any other way or after another fashion, and asserts that he has found out anything, is and has been victim of deception. – Hippocrates

An insolent reply from a polite person is a bad sign. – Hippocrates

Silence is not only never thirsty, but also never brings pain or sorrow. – Hippocrates

Medicine in its present state is, it seems to me, by now completely discovered, insofar as it teaches in each instance the particular details and the correct measures. For anyone who has an understanding of medicine in this way depends very little upon good luck, but is able to do good with or without luck. For the whole of medicine has been established, and the excellent principles discovered in it clearly have very little need of good luck. – Hippocrates

All excesses are inimical to Nature. It is safer to proceed a little at a time, especially when changing from one regimen to another. – Hippocrates

He who wishes to be a surgeon should go to war. – Hippocrates

I swear… to hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture. – Hippocrates

Timidity betrays want of powers, and audacity a want of skill. There are, indeed, two things, knowledge and opinion, of which the one makes its possessor really to know, the other to be ignorant. – Hippocrates

Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. We will one day understand what causes it, and then cease to call it divine. And so it is with everything in the universe. – Hippocrates

Time is that wherein there is opportunity, and opportunity is that wherein there is no great time. – Hippocrates

The patient must combat the disease along with the physician. – Hippocrates

And if incision of the temple is made on the left, spasm seizes the parts on the right, while if the incision is on the right, spasm seizes the parts on the left. – Hippocrates

It is changes that are chiefly responsible for diseases, especially the greatest changes, the violent alterations both in the seasons and in other things. (:)…regimen and temperature, and one period of life to another. – Hippocrates

The body of man has in itself blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile; these make up the nature of this body, and through these he feels pain or enjoys health. Now he enjoys the most perfect health when these elements are duly proportioned to one another in respect of compounding, power and bulk, and when they are perfectly mingled. – Hippocrates

All the most acute, most powerful, and most deadly diseases, and those which are most difficult to be understood by the inexperienced, fall upon the brain. – Hippocrates

Male and female have the power to fuse into one solid, both because both are nourished in both and because soul is the same thing in all living creatures, although the body of each is different. – Hippocrates

The physician must have at his command a certain ready wit, as dourness is repulsive both to the healthy and the sick. – Hippocrates

There is one common flow, one common breathing, all things are in sympathy. – Hippocrates

Whoever is to acquire a competent knowledge of medicine, ought to be possessed of the following advantages: a natural disposition; instructionl a favorable place for the study; early tuition, love of labor; leisure. – Hippocrates

I am about to discuss the disease called ‘sacred’. It is not, in my opinion, any more divine or more sacred that other diseases, but has a natural cause, and its supposed divine origin is due to men’s inexperience, and to their wonder at its peculiar character. – Hippocrates

Of several remedies, the physician should choose the least sensational. – Hippocrates

The forms of diseases are many and the healing of them is manifold. – Hippocrates

Correct is to recognize what diseases are and whence they come; which are long and which are short; which are mortal and which are not; which are in the process of changing into others; which are increasing and which are diminishing; which are major and which are minor; to treat the diseases that can be treated, but to recognize the ones that cannot be, and to know why they cannot be; by treating patients with the former, to give them the benefit of treatment as far as it is possible. – Hippocrates

To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy. – Hippocrates

A physician who is a lover of wisdom is the equal to a god. – Hippocrates

It is believed by experienced doctors that the heat which oozes out of the hand, on being applied to the sick, is highly salutary. It has often appeared, while I have been soothing my patients, as if there was a singular property in my hands to pull and draw away from the affected parts aches and diverse impurities, by laying my hand upon the place, and extending my fingers toward it. Thus it is known to some of the learned that health may be implanted in the sick by certain gestures, and by contact, as some diseases may be communicated from one to another. – Hippocrates

I also maintain that clear knowledge of natural science must be acquired, in the first instance, through mastery of medicine alone. – Hippocrates

Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets. – Hippocrates

I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. – Hippocrates

War is the only proper school of the surgeon. – Hippocrates

It is better not to apply any treatment in cases of occult cancer; for if treated (by surgery), the patients die quickly; but if not treated, they hold out for a long time. – Hippocrates

Physicians are many in title but very few in reality. – Hippocrates

Through seven figures come sensations for a man; there is hearing for sounds, sight for the visible, nostril for smell, tongue for pleasant or unpleasant tastes, mouth for speech, body for touch, passages outwards and inwards for hot or cold breath. Through these come knowledge or lack of it. – Hippocrates

That which is used – develops. That which is not used wastes away. – Hippocrates

Look well to the spine for the cause of disease. – Hippocrates

Who could have foretold, from the structure of the brain, that wine could derange its functions? – Hippocrates

In all abundance there is lack. – Hippocrates

Those diseases which medicines do not cure, iron cures; those which iron cannot cure, fire cures; and those which fire cannot cure, are to be reckoned wholly incurable. – Hippocrates

All diseases begin in the gut. – Hippocrates

Your foods shall be your ‘remedies,’ and your ‘remedies’ shall be your foods. – Hippocrates

Some patients, though conscious that their condition is perilous, recover their health simply through their contentment with the goodness of the physician. – Hippocrates

Things that are holy are revealed only to men who are holy. – Hippocrates

Anyone wishing to study medicine must master the art of massage. – Hippocrates

Primum non nocerum. (First do no harm) – Hippocrates

Everything in excess is opposed to nature. – Hippocrates

Rest as soon as there is pain. – Hippocrates

The wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings. Let food be your medicine. – Hippocrates

The function of protecting and developing health must rank even above that of restoring it when it is impaired. – Hippocrates

I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrongdoing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly, I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art. – Hippocrates

To really know is science; to merely believe you know is ignorance. – Hippocrates

We must turn to nature itself, to the observations of the body in health and in disease to learn the truth. – Hippocrates

Sport is a preserver of health. – Hippocrates

Get knowledge of the spine, for this is the requisite for many diseases – Hippocrates

Even when all is known, the care of a man is not yet complete, because eating alone will not keep a man well; he must also take exercise. For food and exercise, while possessing opposite qualities, yet work together to produce health. – Hippocrates

The natural force within each of us is that greatest healer of all. – Hippocrates

Divine is the task to relieve pain – Hippocrates

Declare the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future; practice these acts. As to diseases, make a habit of two things–to help, or at least to do no harm. – Hippocrates

Illnesses do not come upon us out of the blue. They are developed from small daily sins against Nature. When enough sins have accumulated, illnesses will suddenly appear. – Hippocrates

Everyone has a doctor in him or her; we just have to help it in its work. The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food. But to eat when you are sick, is to feed your sickness. – Hippocrates

Our food should be our medicine and our medicine should be our food. – Hippocrates

If you are not your own doctor, you are a fool. – Hippocrates

The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. – Hippocrates

Positive health requires a knowledge of man’s primary constitution and of the powers of various foods, both those natural to them and those resulting from human skill. But eating alone is not enough for health. There must also be exercise, of which the effects must likewise be known. The combination of these two things makes regimen, when proper attention is given to the season of the year, the changes of the wind, the age of the individual, and the situation of his home. If there is any deficiency in food or exercise, the body will fall sick. – Hippocrates

The physician treats, but nature heals. – Hippocrates

Foolish the doctor who despises the knowledge acquired by the ancients. – Hippocrates

Health is the greatest of human blessings. – Hippocrates

Leave your drugs in the chemist’s pot if you can heal the patient with food. – Hippocrates

Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always. – Hippocrates

The way to health is to have an aromatic bath and a scented massage every day. – Hippocrates

Just as food causes chronic disease, it can be the most powerful cure – Hippocrates

Nature itself is the best physician. – Hippocrates

All parts of the body which have a function, if used in moderation and exercised in labors in which each is accustomed, become thereby healthy, well developed and age more slowly, but if unused they become liable to disease, defective in growth and age quickly. – Hippocrates