Galen Physician Quotes & Sayings

The physician is only nature's assistant. — Galen

Employment, which Galen calls 'Nature's Physician,' is so essential to human happiness that indolence is justly considered as the mother of misery. — Robert A. Burton

The best physician is also a philosopher — Galen

It is not surprising that Ibn Sina is a national icon in Iran today, and one can find countless schools and hospitals named after him in many countries around the world. Indeed, his legacy stretches even further, for there is an 'Avicenna' crater on the moon, and in 1980 every member country of Unesco celebrated the thousand-year anniversary of Ibn Sina's birth. As a philosopher he is referred to as the Aristotle of Islam; as a physician he is known as the Galen of Islam. — Jim Al-Khalili

Employment is nature's physician, and is essential to human happiness. — Galen

O son, burst thy chains and be free! How long wilt thou be a bondsman to silver and gold?
If thou pour the sea into a pitcher, how much will it hold? One day's store.
The pitcher, the eye of the covetous, never becomes full: the oyster-shell is not filled with pearls until it is contented.
He (alone) whose garment is rent by a (mighty) love is purged of covetousness and all defect.
Hail, O Love that bringest us good gain - thou that art the physician of all our ills,
The remedy of our pride and vainglory, our Plato and our Galen! — Jalaluddin Rumi

Though thou pour the ocean into thy pitcher, It can hold no more than one day's store. The pitcher of the desire of the covetous never fills, The oyster-shell fills not with pearls till it is content; Only he whose garment is rent by the violence of love Is wholly pure from covetousness and sin. Hail to thee, then, O LOVE, sweet madness! Thou who healest all our infirmities! Who art the physician of our pride and self-conceit! Who art our Plato and our Galen! Love exalts our earthly bodies to heaven, And makes the very hills to dance with joy! — Rumi

A greater subject fitteth Faustus' wit: Bid Economy10 farewell, and11 Galen come, Seeing, Ubi desinit philosophus, ibi incipit medicus: Be a physician, Faustus; heap up gold, And be eterniz'd for some wondrous cure: Summum bonum medicinae sanitas, The end of physic is our body's health. — Christopher Marlowe

Physical immortality is seductive. The ancient Hindus sought it; the Greek physician Galen from the 2nd Century A.D. and the Arabic philosopher/physician Avicenna from the 11th Century A.D. believed in it. — S. Jay Olshansky