Persons in whom a crisis takes place pass the night preceding the paroxysm uncomfortably, but the succeeding night generally more comfortably.

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

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.

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.

From nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations.

When sleep puts an end to delirium, it is a good symptom.

Health is the greatest of human blessings.

Before you heal someone, ask him if he's willing to give up the things that made him sick.

Everything in excess is opposed to nature.

Any man who is intelligent must, on considering that health is of the utmost value to human beings, have the personal understanding necessary to help himself in diseases, and be able to understand and to judge what physicians say and what they administer to his body, being versed in each of these matters to a degree reasonable for a layman.

A wise man ought to realize that health is his most valuable possession.

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.

Nature itself is the best physician.

In whatever disease sleep is laborious, it is a deadly symptom; but if sleep does good, it is not deadly.

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

Many admire, few know.

Idleness and lack of occupation tend -- nay are dragged -- towards evil.

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

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.

He who does not understand astrology is not a doctor but a fool.