Galen quotes

Galen was a Greek physician, surgeon, and philosopher whose medical theories dominated Western medicine for over a millennium. His extensive writings covered topics such as anatomy, physiology, and pharmacology. He significantly influenced the development of medical science in both the ancient and medieval worlds. Here are 15 of his quotes:

He who has two cakes of bread, let him dispose of one of them for some flowers of the narcissus; for bread is the food of the body, and the narcissus is the food of the soul.

Galen

Employment is Nature's physician, and is essential to human happiness.

Galen

The best physician is also a philosopher.

Galen

Every animal is sad after coitus except the human female and the rooster.

Galen

Diogenes received an invitation to dine with one whose house was splendidly furnished, in the highest order and taste, and nothing therein wanting. Diogenes, hawking, and as if about to spit, looked in all directions, and finding nothing adapted thereto, spat right in the face of the master. He, indignant, asked why he did so? "Because," Diogenes, "I saw nothing so dirty and filthy in all your house. For the walls were covered with pictures, the floors of the most precious tessellated character - and ranged with the various images of gods, and other ornamental figures."

Galen

That which is, grows, while that which is not, becomes.

Galen

It would be better, I think, for the man who really seeks the truth not to ask what the poets say; rather, he should first learn the method of finding the scientific premises that I discussed in the second book; then he should train and exercise himself in this method; and when his training is sufficiently advanced, then, as he approaches each particular problem, he should enquire into the premise needed for proving it, which premise he should take from simple sense-perception, which from experience, whether drawn from life or from the arts, which from the truths clearly apprehended by the mind, in order to draw out from them the desired conclusion.

Galen

Diogenes compared them to fig-trees growing over precipices; for their fruit was devoured by daws and crows, not by men.

Galen

Much music marreth men's manners.

Galen

If sometimes dreams come true, what of our nightmares?

Galen

(Wine is) the nurse of old age.

Galen

For truly on countless occasions throughout my life I have had this experience; persons for a time talk pleasantly with me because of my work among the sick, in which they think me very well trained, but when they learn later on that I am also trained in mathematics, they avoid me for the most part and are no longer at all glad to be with me.

Galen

A god, as I have said, commanded me to tell the first use also, and he himself knows that I have shrunk from its obscurity. He knows too that not only here but also in many other places in these commentaries, if it depended on me, I would omit demonstrations requiring astronomy, geometry, music, or any other logical discipline, lest my books should be held in utter detestation by physicians. For truly on countless occasions throughout my life I have had this experience; persons for a time talk pleasantly with me because of my work among the sick, in which they think me very well trained, but when they learn later on that I am also trained in mathematics, they avoid me for the most part and are no longer at all glad to be with me. Accordingly, I am always wary of touching on such subjects, and in this case it is only in obedience to the command of a divinity, as I have said, that I have used the theorems of geometry.

Galen