Avicenna (Ibn Sina)
Persian polymath, Canon of Medicine
Sayings by Avicenna (Ibn Sina)
The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes.
Medicine considers the human body as to the means by which it is cured and by which it is driven away from health.
The human intellect at birth is like a tabula rasa, a pure potentiality that is actualized through education and comes to know.
An ignorant doctor is the aide-de-camp of death.
The soul is not in the body; rather, the body is in the soul.
Sleep is the absence of waking, just as death is the absence of life.
The more brilliant the lightning, the quicker it disappears.
The human soul is an immaterial substance that governs the body.
Wine is the enemy of the liver and the friend of the heart.
The physician must be a philosopher, for philosophy and medicine are sisters.
The mind is like a mirror; it gathers dust while it rests.
The best way to learn is to teach.
The world is not a prison, but a kind of school.
A fool can ask more questions than a wise man can answer.
Time is a sword; if you do not cut it, it will cut you.
The stomach is the house of disease, and abstinence is the most important medicine.
The physician must be a man of honor, for he holds life in his hands.
The greatest happiness is the happiness of knowledge.
The soul is neither inside nor outside the body; it is the body’s reality.
The proof of the existence of the soul is that you doubt.