Paracelsus Quotes & Sayings

All things are poisons, for there is nothing without poisonous qualities. It is only the dose which makes a thing poison. — Paracelsus

Time is a brisk wind, for each hour it brings something new ... but who can understand and measure its sharp breath, its mystery and its design? — Paracelsus

The art of medicine has its roots in the heart. — Paracelsus

The highest degree of a medicine is Love. — Paracelsus

The ultimate cause of human disease is the consequence of our transgression of the universal laws of life. — Paracelsus

Many have said of Alchemy, that it is for the making of gold and silver. For me such is not the aim, but to consider only what virtue and power may lie in medicines. — Paracelsus

Be not another, if you can be yourself. — Paracelsus

Death is the midwife of very great things ... It brings about the birth and rebirth of forms a thousand times improved. This is the highest mystery of God. — Paracelsus

The interpretation of dreams is a great art. — Paracelsus

All that man needs for health and healing has been provided by God in nature, the Challenge of science is to find it. — Paracelsus

This is alchemy, and this is the office of Vulcan; he is the apothecary and chemist of the medicine. — Paracelsus

Truly it has been said that there is nothing new under the sun,
for knowledge is revealed and is submerged again, even as a nation rises and falls.
Here is a system, tested throughout the ages, but lost again and again by ignorance or prejudice,
in the same way that great nations have risen and fallen
and been lost to history beneath the desert sands and in the ocean depths. — Paracelsus

Anyone who thinks that all fruits ripen at the same time as strawberries, knows nothing of grapes. — Paracelsus

All our nourishment becomes ourselves; we eat ourselves into being ... For every bite we take contains in itself all our organs, all that is included in the whole man, all of which he is constituted ... We do not eat bone, blood vessels, ligaments, and seldom brain, heart, and entrails, nor fat, therefore bone does not make bone, nor brain make brain, but every bite contains all these. Bread is blood, but who sees it? It is fat, who sees it? ... for the master craftsman in the stomach is good. He can make iron out of brimstone: he is there daily and shapes the man according to his form. — Paracelsus

Then God sends us such a messenger who appears to us in spirit, warns us, consoles us, teaches us, and brings us His good tidings. — Paracelsus

There is in each person, in every animal, bird and plant a star which mirrors, matches or is in some sense the same as a star in the heavens. — Paracelsus

Every physician must be rich in knowledge, and not only of that which is written in books; his patients should be his book, they will never mislead him. — Paracelsus

Men who are devoid of the power of spiritual perception are unable to recognize anything that cannot be seen externally. — Paracelsus

The book of Nature is that which the physician must read; and to do so he must walk over the leaves. — Paracelsus

In every human being there is a special heaven, whole and unbroken. — Paracelsus

The dose makes the poison... — Paracelsus

Every body consists of three ingredients. The names of these are Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt. — Paracelsus

Some children are born from heaven and others are born from hell, because each human being has his inherent tendencies, and these tendencies belong to his spirit, and indicate the state in which he existed before he was born. — Paracelsus

What we should be after death, we have to attain in life, i.e. holiness and bliss. Here on earth the Kingdom of God begins. — Paracelsus

A mortal lives not through that breath that flows in and that flows out. The source of his life is another and this causes the breath to flow. — Paracelsus

Fasting is the greatest remedy
the physician within. — Paracelsus

Everything is a poison, nothing is a poison.
It is the dose that makes the poison — Paracelsus

The human body is vapor materialized by sunshine mixed with the life of the stars. — Paracelsus

There is an earthly sun, which is the cause of all heat, and all who are able to see may see the sun; and those who are blind and cannot see him may feel his heat. There is an Eternal Sun, which is the source of all wisdom, and those whose spiritual senses have awakened to life will see that sun and be conscious of His existence; but those who have not attained spiritual consciousness may yet feel His power by an inner faculty which is called Intuition. — Paracelsus

Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest. (Let no man belong to another that can belong to himself.) — Paracelsus

As you talk, so is your heart. — Paracelsus

Women's regular bleeding engenders phantoms. — Paracelsus

Although Alchemy has now fallen into contempt, and is even considered a thing of the past, the physicain should not be influenced by such judgements. — Paracelsus

Nature also forges man, now a gold man, now a silver man, now a fig man, now a bean man. — Paracelsus

From time immemorial artistic insights have been revealed to artists in their sleep and in dreams, so that at all times they ardently desired them. — Paracelsus

A little bit of beer is divine medicine. — Paracelsus

Could we but rightly comprehend the mind of man, nothing would be impossible to us upon the earth. — Paracelsus

All numbers are multiples of one, all sciences converge to a common point, all wisdom comes out of one center, and the number of wisdom is one. — Paracelsus

The beginning of wisdom is the beginning of supernatural power. — Paracelsus

That which lives on reason lives against the spirit. — Paracelsus

The most secure method, to ruin your health, is a SICK BED! — Paracelsus

The art of medicine cannot be inherited, nor can it be copied from books — Paracelsus

All things are poisons. It is simply the dose that distinguishes between a poison and a remedy. — Paracelsus

The dreams which reveal the supernatural are promises and messages that God sends us directly: they are nothing but His angels, His ministering spirits, who usually appear to us when we are in a great predicament. — Paracelsus

Magic has power to experience and fathom things which are inaccessible to human reason. For magic is a great secret wisdom, just as reason is a great public folly. — Paracelsus

Consider that we shouldn't call our brother a fool, since we don't know ourselves what we are. — Paracelsus

The right dose differentiates a poison from a remedy — Paracelsus

Medicine is not merely a science but an art. The character of the physician may act more powerfully upon the patient than the drugs employed. — Paracelsus

The universities do not teach all things ... so a doctor must seek out old wives, gypsies, sorcerers, wandering tribes, old robbers, and such outlaws and take lessons from them. A doctor must be a traveller ... Knowledge is experience. — Paracelsus

If we want to make a statement about a man's nature on the basis of his physiognomy, we must take everything into account; it is in his distress that a man is tested, for then his nature is revealed. — Paracelsus

Poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy. — Paracelsus

Let no one who can be his own belong to another. — Paracelsus

Dreams must be heeded and accepted. For a great many of them come true. — Paracelsus

For God, who is in heaven, is in man. Where else can heaven be, if not in man? As we need it, it must be within us. Therefore it knows our prayer even before we have uttered it, for it is closer to our hearts than to our words.
- Opus paramirum, I:ix — Paracelsus

The physician must give heed to the region in which the patient lives, that is to say, to its type and peculiarities. — Paracelsus

Once a disease has entered the body, all parts which are healthy must fight it: not one alone, but all. Because a disease might mean their common death. Nature knows this; and Nature attacks the disease with whatever help she can muster. — Paracelsus

Know that the philosopher has power over the stars, and not the stars over him. — Paracelsus

Medicine rests upon four pillars - philosophy, astronomy, alchemy, and ethics. The first pillar is the philosophical knowledge of earth and water; the second, astronomy, supplies its full understanding of that which is of fiery and airy nature; the third is an adequate explanation of the properties of all the four elements - that is to say, of the whole cosmos - and an introduction into the art of their transformations; and finally, the fourth shows the physician those virtues which must stay with him up until his death, and it should support and complete the three other pillars. — Paracelsus

Everything is a drug; it depends on the dose. — Paracelsus

Nothing is hidden so much that it wouldn't be revealed through its fruit. — Paracelsus

Man is a microcosm, or a little world, because he is an extract from all the stars and planets of the whole firmament, from the earth and the elements; and so he is their quintessence. — Paracelsus

Dreams are not without meaning wherever thay may come from-from fantasy, from the elements, or from other inspiration. — Paracelsus

It is said that a wise man rules over the stars, but this does not mean that he rules over the influences which come from the stars in the sky. It means that he rules over the powers which exist in his own constitution. — Paracelsus

The art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician. Therefore the physician must start from nature, with an open mind. — Paracelsus

Whether wine is a nourishment, medicine or poison is a matter of dosage — Paracelsus

The spirit is the master; imagination the tool, and the body the plastic material ... The power of the imagination is a great factor in medicine. It may produce diseases in man and in animals, and it may cure them ..Ills of the body may be cured by physical remedies or by the power of the spirit acting through the soul. — Paracelsus

For it is we who must pray for our daily bread, and if He grants it to us, it is only through our labour, our skill and preparation. — Paracelsus

The main reason for healing is love. — Paracelsus

Man is ill because he is never still. — Paracelsus

What the eyes perceive in herbs or stones or trees is not yet a remedy; the eyes see only the dross. — Paracelsus

What sense would it make or what would it benfit a physician if he discovered the origin of the diseases but could not cure or alleviate them? — Paracelsus

And it is true, best is nothing concealed which shall not be discovered; for which cause a marvellous being shall come after me, who as yet lives not, and who shall reveal many things. — Paracelsus

All drugs are poisons the benefit depends on the dosage. — Paracelsus

I am different. Let this not upset you — Paracelsus

Determined will is the beginning of all magical operations. It is because men do not perfectly imagine and believe the result, that the (occult) arts are so uncertain, while they might be perfectly certain. — Paracelsus

When a man undertakes to create something, he establishes a new heaven, as it were, and from it the work that he desires to create flows into him ... For such is the immensity of man that he is greater than heaven and earth. — Paracelsus

Since nothing is so secret or hidden that it cannot be revealed, everything depends on the discovery of those things that manifest the hidden. — Paracelsus

For one country is different from another; its earth is different, as are its stones, wines, bread, meat, and everything that grows and thrives in a specific region. — Paracelsus

It would be an error to try to build the Kingdom of Heaven upon envy. For nothing that is founded on envy can thrive; it must have another root. — Paracelsus

He who knows nothing, loves nothing.
He who can do nothing understands nothing.
He who understands nothing is worthless. — Paracelsus

But is not He who created it for the sake of the sick body more than the remedy? And is not He who cures the soul, which is more than the body, greater? — Paracelsus

Thoughts are free and subject to no rule. On them rests the freedom of man, and they tower above the light of nature ... create a new heaven, a new firmament, a new source of energy from which new arts flow. — Paracelsus

It should be forbidden and severely punished to remove cancer by cutting, burning, cautery, and other fiendish tortures. It is from nature that the disease comes, and from nature comes the cure, not from physicians. — Paracelsus

All arts lie in man, though not all are apparent. Awakening brings them out. To be taught is nothing; everything is in man waiting to be awakened. — Paracelsus

Often the remedy is deemed the highest good because it helps so many. — Paracelsus

However, anyone to whom this happens should not leave his room upon awakening, should speak to no-one, but remain alone and sober until everything comes back to him, and he recalls the dream. — Paracelsus

We do not know it because we are fooling away our time with outward and perishing things, and are asleep in regard to that which is real within ourself. — Paracelsus

Medicine is not only a science; it is also an art. It does not consist of compounding pills and plasters; it deals with the very processes of life, which must be understood before they may be guided. — Paracelsus

This process is alchemy: its founder is the smith Vulcan. — Paracelsus