Avicenna Quotes

#1. Width of life is more important than length of life.

Avicenna

#2. Therefore in medicine we ought to know the causes of sickness and health.

Avicenna

#3. Pain is a sensation produced by something contrary to the course of nature and this sensation is set up by one of two circumstances: either a very sudden change of the temperament (or the bad effect of a contrary temperament) or a solution of continuity.

Avicenna

#4. It is in the nature of water ... to become transformed into earth through a predominating earthy virtue; ... it is in the nature of earth to become transformed into water through a predominating aqueous virtue.

Avicenna

#5. When you do not know the nature of the malady, leave it to nature; do not strive to hasten matters. For either nature will bring about the cure or it will itself reveal clearly what the malady really is.

Avicenna

#6. The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes.

Avicenna

#7. A horse is simply a horse.

Avicenna

#8. Medicine considers the human body as to the means by which it is cured and by which it is driven away from health.

Avicenna

#9. Is it the fault of wine if a fool drinks it and goes stumbling into darkness?

Avicenna

#10. Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned.

Avicenna

#11. That whose existence is necessary must necessarily be one essence.

Avicenna

#12. The physical signs of measles are nearly the same as those of smallpox, but nausea and inflammation is more severe, though the pains in the back are less.

Avicenna

#13. The different sorts of madness are innumerable.

Avicenna

#14. Those who deny the first principle should be flogged or burned until they admit that it is not the same thing to be burned and not burned, or whipped and not whipped.

Avicenna

#15. Pure earth does not petrify, because the predominance of dryness over [i.e. in] the earth endows it not with coherence but rather with crumbliness. In general, stone is formed in two ways only (a) through the hardening of clay, and (b) by the congelation [of waters].

Avicenna

#16. Absence of understanding does not warrant absence of existence

Avicenna

#17. I [prefer] a short life with width to a narrow one with length.

Avicenna

#18. The more brilliant the lightning, the quicker it disappears.

Avicenna

#19. There are no incurable diseases - only the lack of will. There are no worthless herbs - only the lack of knowledge.

Avicenna

#20. The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.

Avicenna

#21. As to the mental essence, we find it in infants devoid of every mental form.

Avicenna

#22. An ignorant doctor is the aide-de-camp of death.

Avicenna

#23. I would rather have a short life with width rather than a narrow one with length.

Avicenna

#24. When a thing standeth long in salt, it is salt, and if any thing stand in a stinking place, it is made stinking; and if any thing standeth with a bold man, it is made bold, and if it stand with a fearefull man, it is made fearefull.

Avicenna

#25. Time is merely a feature of our memories and expectations.

Avicenna

#26. Leeches should be kept a day before applying them. They should be squeezed to make them eject the contents of their stomachs.

Avicenna

#27. In God alone, essence (what He is) and existence (that he is) coincide.

Avicenna

#28. Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials.

Avicenna