Galen > Quotes

“Those who are enslaved to their sects are not merely devoid of all sound knowledge, but they will not even stop to learn!”
― Claudius Galenus

“Employment is nature's physician and is essential to human happiness.”
― Galen

“The best physician is also a philosopher.”
― Claudius Galenus

“The chief merit of language is clearness.”
― galen

“Look to the nervous system as the key to maximum health.”
― Galen

“(Wine is) the nurse of old age.”
― Galen

“Galen’s texts constitute an estimated 10 percent of all extant Greek literature dating before 350 CE, and we know that we are still missing much of what he wrote.”
― Galen, How to Be Healthy: An Ancient Guide to Wellness

“Laziness breeds humors of the blood”
― Claudius Galenus

“In that case there will be no danger of his performing any evil action, since he practises temperance and despises money: all evil actions that men undertake are done either at the prompting of greed or under the spell of pleasure”
― Galen

“ἀλλ' οἱ περὶ Χρύσιππον κἀνταῦθα τῇ λέξει μᾶλλον ἢ τοῖς πράγμασι προσέχοντες τὸν νοῦν.”
― Galen

“[καὶ] ὥσπερ γε καὶ τὸ μάχεσθαι κατὰ πολλοὺς γίγνεται τρόπους.”
― Galen

“It should be our first duty to study philosophy, if we are to be true followers of Hippocrates. And if we do this, nothing can prevent us from becoming like him, and indeed even better than he was; learning the things that he has so well set down, and ourselves discovering those that remain. (from the essay "That the Best Physician Is Also a Philosopher")”
― Galen

“What reason, then, remains why the doctor, who practises the Art in a manner worthy of Hippocrates, should not be a philosopher? For since, in order to discover the nature of the body, and the distinctions between diseases, and the indications for remedies, he must exercise his mind in rational thought, and since, so that he may persevere laboriously in the practice of these things, he must despise riches and exercise temperance, he must already possess all the parts of philosophy: the logical, the scientific, and the ethical. Nor need he fear, if he condemns riches and lives temperately, that he will be doing something out of place; for all the rash and unjust things that men do, they do because they are seduced by covetousness, or bewitched by pleasure. So he must of necessity have the other virtues as well; for they are all connected, and it is not possible to take any one of them without all the others following at once, as if strung on a single thread. (from the essay "That the Best Physician Is Also a Philosopher")”
― Galen