In a disordered mind, as in a disordered body, soundness of health is impossible. ~Cicero
I think you might dispense with half your doctors if you would only consult Dr. Sun more. ~Henry Ward Beecher
Health is a state of complete harmony of the body, mind and spirit.
When one is free from physical disabilities and mental distractions, the
gates of the soul open. ~B.K.S. Iyengar
Sickness is the vengeance of nature for the violation of her laws. ~Charles Simmons
Each patient carries his own doctor inside him. They come to us now
knowing this truth. We are at our best when they give the doctor who
resides within each patient a chance to go to work. ~Albert Schweitzer
If ones bowels move, one is happy; and if they don't move, one is unhappy. That is all there is to it. ~Lin Yutang, 1937
Good health is a duty to yourself, to your contemporaries, to your inheritors, to the progress of the world. ~Gwendolyn Brooks
Mens sana in corpore sano. (Your prayer must be for a sound mind in a sound body.) ~Juvenal
[I]t seems as if pain were the prayer of the nerve for healthy blood. ~Moritz Heinrich Romberg, A Manual of the Nervous Diseases of Man, 1840, translated from German by Edward H. Sieveking
The hospitals and graveyards are filled with those who refused to
acknowledge the virtues of physical morality. ~Dr Ron Spallone,
The appearance of a disease is swift as an arrow; its disappearance slow, like a thread. ~Chinese Proverb
Nature does require
Her time of preservation, which perforce
I her frail son amongst my brethren mortal
Must give my attendance to.
~William Shakespeare
Health is not valued until sickness comes. ~Thomas Fuller
Health is like munny, we never have a true idea of its value until we lose it. ~Josh Billings
Adam and Eve ate the first vitamins, including the package. ~E.R. Squibb
Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its
nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself, it
will do more than if you paralyze it by encumbering it with remedies.
~Leo Tolstoy
Gold that buys health can never be ill spent. ~Thomas Dekker, Westward Ho, 1604
Disease is somatic; the suffering from it, psychic. ~Martin H. Fischer
Health of body and mind is a great blessing, if we can bear it. ~John Henry Cardinal Newman
With every pill we have prescribed for us we should also be given a
creative prayer, a suggested way to correct our destructive patterns of
thought. ~Ernest Holmes, "Health Is Normal"
Diseases crucify the soul of man, attenuate our bodies, dry them, wither
them, rivel them up like old apples, make them as so many Anatomies.
~Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy
Sometimes I get the feeling the aspirin companies are sponsoring my headaches. ~Terri Guillemets
Life is like a tree and its root is consciousness. Therefore, once we
tend the root, the tree as a whole will be healthy. ~Deepak Chopra
A healthy body is the guest-chamber of the soul; a sick, its prison. ~Francis Bacon
An imaginary ailment is worse than a disease. ~Yiddish Proverb
Health is a large word. It embraces not the body only, but the mind and
spirit as well;... and not today's pain or pleasure alone, but the
whole being and outlook of a man. ~James H. West
He who can believe himself well, will be well. ~Ovid
The root of all health is in the brain. The trunk of it is in emotion.
The branches and leaves are the body. The flower of health blooms when
all parts work together. ~Kurdish Saying
Preserving the health by too strict a regimen is a wearisome malady. ~François Duc de la Rochefoucauld
From the bitterness of disease man learns the sweetness of health. ~Catalan Proverb
If man thinks about his physical or moral state he usually discovers that he is ill. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It's bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children's health than the pediatrician. ~Meryl Streep
Just because you're not sick doesn't mean you're healthy. ~Author Unknown
Every man's disease is his personal property. ~Alonzo Clark
Know, then, whatever cheerful and serene
Supports the mind supports the body too.
~John Armstrong
I am pretty sure that, if you will be quite honest, you will admit that a
good rousing sneeze, one that tears open your collar and throws your
hair into your eyes, is really one of life's sensational pleasures.
~Robert Benchley, "Hiccoughing Makes Us Fat," No Poems: or around the world backwards and sideways, 1932
Stretching oneself too thin is the disease of modern life — letting oneself get too thick, the other. ~Terri Guillemets
Physick, for the most part, is nothing else but the Substitute of Exercise or Temperance. ~Joseph Addison
If you desire healing,
let yourself fall ill,
let yourself fall ill.
~Rumi
A bad cold wouldn't be so annoying if it weren't for the advice of our friends. ~Kin Hubbard
Men make use of their illnesses at least as much as they are made use of by them. ~Aldous Huxley
The most important thing in illness is never to lose heart. ~Nikolai Lenin
Beauty isn't something on the outside. It's your insides that count! You
gotta eat green stuff to make sure you're pretty on the inside. ~Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo video game) written by Takayuki Ikkaku, Arisa Hosaka, and Toshihiro Kawabata
The message that underlies healing is simple yet radical: We are already
whole.... Underneath our fears and worries, unaffected by the many
layers of our conditioning and actions, is a peaceful core. The work of
healing is peeling away the barriers of fear that keep us unaware of our
true nature of love, peace, and rich interconnection with the web of
life. Healing is the rediscovery of who we are and who we have always
been. ~Joan Borysenko
The part can never be well unless the whole is well. ~Plato
The cure of the part should not be attempted without the cure of the whole. ~Plato
Illnesses which occur because of physical causes should be treated by
doctors with medical remedies; those which are due to spiritual causes
disappear through spiritual means. Thus an illness caused by affliction,
fear, nervous impressions, will be healed more effectively by spiritual
rather than physical treatment. Hence, both kinds of treatment should
be followed; they are not contradictory. ~'Abdu'l-Bahá
The scientific truth may be put quite briefly; eat moderately, having an
ordinary mixed diet, and don't worry. ~Robert Hutchison, 1932
It is part of the cure to want to be cured. ~Seneca
I am at the moment deaf in the ears, hoarse in the throat, red in the
nose, green in the gills, damp in the eyes, twitchy in the joints and
fractious in temper from a most intolerable and oppressive cold.
~Charles Dickens
If by gaining knowledge we destroy our health, we labour for a thing that will be useless in our hands. ~John Locke
To avoid sickness eat less; to prolong life worry less. ~Chu Hui Weng
It is a wise mans part, rather to avoid sickness, than to wishe for medicines. ~Thomas More, Utopia
What health is to the body, even that is honesty to the soul. Develop
your spirit that it may gain strength to control the body and follow the
natural laws of nutrition and hygiene. ~Kemetic Wisdom
When the head aches, all the body is the worse. ~English Proverb
Food-addiction, or food-drunkenness, is an old story in Hygienic
literature. This is the first mention I have seen of it in "regular"
medical literature. I fear to hope that its recognition spells progress.
~Herbert M. Shelton, Getting Well
Humans live on one-quarter of what they eat; on the other three-quarters lives their doctor. ~Author Unknown
Although they can be very healthy I believe the current focus on gluten
free lifestyles is a little misplaced. I see an awful lot of people that
would benefit much more from a glutton free lifestyle. ~Tim Irwin
Against diseases here the strongest fence
Is the defensive vertue, abstinence.
~Robert Herrick, "Abstinence"
The cause is within us. The cure is within us. When we know this our
concept of disease is no longer that of something fixed upon the body
cells which must be purged, cut or burned away. It is not something
coming in from the outside which we cannot prevent. Rather it is a
change from within, and we must find the reason why the body changes its
perfect pattern to vibrate to discord rather than to harmony. ~Rebecca
Beard, 1951
The doctor of the future will give no medicines, but will interest his
patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the causes and
prevention of disease. ~Thomas Edison
Healthy people are invalids who don't know it. ~Jules Romains, Dr. Knock, 1923
The surest road to health, say what they will,
Is never to suppose we shall be ill.
Most of those evils we poor mortals know
From doctors and imagination flow.
~Charles Churchill
I suspect that we are all recipients of cosmic love notes. Messages,
omens, voices, cries, revelations, and appeals are homogenized into each
day's events. If only we knew how to listen, to read the signs. ~Sam
Keen
When a man is ill his very goodness is sickly. ~Friedrich Nietzsche
Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the
physician within you heals your sick self. ~Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet, 1923
The deviation of man from the state in which he was originally placed by
nature seems to have proved to him a prolific source of disease.
~Edward Jenner
Did God who gave us flowers and trees,
Also provide the allergies?
~Yip Harburg, "A Nose Is a Nose Is a Nose," 1965
There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride of manhood. ~Charles Dickens
People with diseases like AIDS and cancer feel an urgency in
straightening out their lives, examining their purpose, and confronting
the reality of death. Ironically, in spite of the physical and emotional
pain they experience, many of these patients express gratitude for this
opportunity. The encounter with their own mortality changes their
priorities in life, their values and aspirations. For many, it makes
them truly cherish life and the ability to give and receive love. ~Jeff
Seibert
Everyone should be his own physician. We ought to assist and not force
nature. Eat with moderation what agrees with your constitution. Nothing
is good for the body but what we can digest. What medicine can produce
digestion? Exercise. What will recruit strength? Sleep. What will
alleviate incurable ills? Patience. ~Voltaire
Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease. ~Hippocrates
I am convinced that unconditional love is the most powerful known
stimulant of the immune system. If I told patients to raise their blood
levels of immune globulins or killer T cells, no one would know how. But
if I can teach them to love themselves and others fully, the same
changes happen automatically. The truth is: love heals. ~Bernie Siegel
You can learn to follow the inner self, the inner physician that tells
you where to go. Healing is simply attempting to do more of those things
that bring joy and fewer of those things that bring pain. ~O. Carl
Simonton
You are as important to your health as it is to you. ~Terri Guillemets
Every day we touch what is wrong, and, as a result, we are becoming less
and less healthy. That is why we have to learn to practice touching
what is not wrong—inside us and around us. When we get in touch with our
eyes, our heart, our liver, our breathing, and our non-toothache and
really enjoy them, we see that the conditions for peace and happiness
are already present. ~Thich Nhat Hanh
The mechanisms of vis medicatrix naturæ—the most healing power of nature—are so effective that most diseases are self-terminating. ~René Dubos
Let us a little permit Nature to take her own way; she better
understands her own Affairs than we. ~Michel de Montaigne, "Of
Experience," translated from French by Charles Cotton
The physician who teaches people to sustain their health is the superior
physician. The physician who waits to treat people until after their
health is lost is considered to be inferior. This is like waiting until
one's family is starving to begin to plant seeds in the garden. ~Author
unknown, similar to statement in The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine
Most of the time we think we're sick, it's all in the mind. ~Thomas Wolfe
Bacteria keeps us from heaven and puts us there. ~Martin H. Fischer
Health and cheerfulness naturally beget each other. ~Joseph Addison
It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive
organs. We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach wills so. It
dictates to us our emotions, our passions.... We are but the veriest,
sorriest slaves of our stomach. Reach not after morality and
righteousness, my friends; watch vigilantly your stomach, and diet it
with care and judgment. Then virtue and contentment will come and reign
within your heart, unsought by any effort of your own; and you will be a
good citizen, a loving husband, and a tender father—a noble, pious man.
~Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), 1889
It is a lot harder to keep people well than it is to just get them over a sickness. ~DeForest Clinton Jarvis
I have come to understand that some of the deepest and most effective
healing is not found at a doctor's office or a hospital, but rather from
inside ourselves. Our bodies are designed for self-healing, and we are
capable of both boosting and blocking that ability. ~Dr. Daju Suzanne
Friedman, Heal Yourself with Qigong
Life is not merely to be alive, but to be well. ~Marcus Valerius Martial
There are some remedies worse than the disease. ~Publilius Syrus
Nearly all men die of their remedies, and not of their illnesses. ~Jean Baptiste Molière, Le Malade Imaginaire
The mind has great influence over the body, and maladies often have their origin there. ~Jean Baptiste Molière
Illness tells us what we are. ~Italian Saying
To heal is to touch with love that which we previously touched with fear. ~Stephen Levine
The marvelous pharmacy that was designed by nature and placed into our
being by the universal architect produces most of the medicines we need.
~Norman Cousins
Health... is not so much a state, but a force: the power to resist and overcome threats to one's well-being. ~Gregory P. Fields
Healing comes when the individual remembers his or her identity—the
purpose chosen in the world of ancestral wisdom—and reconnects with that
world of Spirit. ~Malidoma Patrice Somé
Confidence and hope do more good than physic. ~Galen
Live in rooms full of light
Avoid heavy food
Be moderate in the drinking of wine
Take massage, baths, exercise, and gymnastics
Fight insomnia with gentle rocking or the sound of running water
Change surroundings and take long journeys
Strictly avoid frightening ideas
Indulge in cheerful conversation and amusements
Listen to music.
~A. Cornelius Celsus
The miracle of self-healing occurs when the inner patient yields to the inner physician. ~Vernon Howard, 1967
Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well
and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the
good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a
spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place. ~Susan
Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, 1977
Doctors don't know everything really. They understand matter, not spirit. And you and I live in the spirit. ~William Saroyan
Half the modern drugs could well be thrown out the window, except that the birds might eat them. ~Martin H. Fischer
How sickness enlarges the dimension of a man's self to himself! ~Charles Lamb, Last Essays of Elia
Our illness is often our healing. ~Mooji
The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant
duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you
say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you
dislike, and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune. Our
nervous system isn't just a fiction, it's a part of our physical body,
and our soul exists in space, and is inside us, like the teeth in our
mouth. It can't be forever violated with impunity. ~Boris Pasternak
The existence of illness in the body may no doubt be called a shadow of
the true illness which is held by man in his mind. ~Hazrat Khan
A single, dancing thread ties the people of the world together in a
cohesive fabric. This is our humanness and mortality. We are all born
with a similar challenge, borne from the blessing of ownership of this
complex physical body.... With this ownership... comes the sometimes
immense responsibility of health maintenance. ~Garri Garripoli, Qigong: Essence of the Healing Dance
Doctors are always working to preserve our health and cooks to destroy
it, but the latter are the more often successful. ~Denis Diderot
Sickness is poor-spirited, and cannot serve anyone; it must husband its
resources to live. But health or fullness answers its own ends, and has
to spare, runs over, and inundates the neighborhoods and creeks of
other men's necessities. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Health is the first muse, comprising the magical benefits of air,
landscape, and bodily exercise on the mind. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims, "Inspiration"
If you wish to keep as well as possible, the less you think about your health the better. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Over the Teacups, 1891
After these two, Dr. Diet and Dr. Quiet, Dr. Merriman is requisite to preserve health. ~James Howell
Illness is the result of imbalance. Imbalance is a result of forgetting
who you are. Forgetting who you are creates thoughts and actions that
lead to an unhealthy lifestyle and eventually to illness.... Illness can
thus be understood as a lesson you have given yourself to help you
remember who you are. ~Barbara Brennan
The greatest leverage for healing is found at the subtlest levels of function. ~Rudolph Ballentine
First need in the reform of hospital management? That's easy! The
death of all dietitians, and the resurrection of a French chef. ~Martin
H. Fischer
In the face of such overwhelming statistical possibilities hypochondria
has always seems to me to be the only rational position to take on
life. ~John Diamond
Health and disease don't just happen to us. They are active processes
issuing from inner harmony or disharmony, profoundly affected by our
states of consciousness, our ability or inability to flow with
experience. This recognition carries with it implicit responsibility and
opportunity. ~Marilyn Ferguson
He who has health has hope; and he who has hope has everything. ~Arabic Proverb
A bodily disease, which we look upon as whole and entire within itself,
may, after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part.
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
To live without love, compassion, or any other spiritual value creates a
state of such severe imbalance that every cell yearns to correct it.
Ultimately, that is what lies behind the onset of disease; the body is
sending a message that something lacking in the present—an imbalance
existing somewhere—has given rise to highly visible, unarguable,
physical symptoms. ~Deepak Chopra
Happiness lies, first of all, in health. ~George William Curtis, Lotus-Eating
If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking and loving, you don't actually live longer; it just seems longer. ~Clement Freud, The Observer, 27 December 1964
Healing comes only from that which leads the patient beyond himself and beyond his entanglements with ego.... ~Carl Jung
If you start to think about your physical or moral condition, you usually find that you are sick. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Proverbs in Prose
When an illness knocks you on your ass, you should stay and relax for a while before trying to get back up. ~Terri Guillemets
A great many sick persons are allowed to drift into a critical condition
when ill—from which many never rally, because they are not fed—not
furnished with such nutritive material as their enfeebled powers can
digest. ~King Chambers, quoted by John Milner Fothergill in A Manual of Dietetics, 1886
If you do everything you should do, and do not do anything you should
not do, you will, according to the best available statistics, live
exactly eighteen hours longer than you would otherwise. ~Logan
Clendening
The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink
what you don't like, and do what you'd druther not. ~Mark Twain
Health is a relationship between you and your body. ~Terri Guillemets
The great secret of medicine, known to doctors but still hidden from the
public, is that most things get better by themselves. ~Lewis Thomas
I see rejection in my skin, worry in my cancers, bitterness and hate in
my aching joints. I failed to take care of my mind, and so my body now
goes to hospital. ~Astrid Alauda
It's no longer a question of staying healthy. It's a question of finding a sickness you like. ~Jackie Mason
Sometimes a headache is all in your head. Relax. ~Terri Guillemets
Health is merely the slowest way someone can die. ~Author Unknown
May you live as long as you are fit to live, but no longer! or, may you
rather die before you cease to be fit to live than after! ~Philip
Dormer Stanhope, 1749
Those obsessed with health are not healthy; the first requisite of good
health is a certain calculated carelessness about oneself. ~Sydney J.
Harris
My excess fat scares me — it's a ticking time bomb to my body. ~Carrie Latet, 2006
I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no
pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric
ward. ~John Mortimer
Personal healing on all levels—physical, emotional, mental, and
spiritual—comes when we get in touch with our disowned energies....
Through integrating all aspects of ourselves, we become whole. ~Shakti
Gawain
So many people spend their health gaining wealth, and then have to spend
their wealth to regain their health. ~A.J. Reb Materi, Our Family
If the physician comes from a far land and speaks in a strange and
unintelligible language, the common people think him clever, gather
around him, and seek his advice. The physician does not work the cure.
He does but prepare and clear the path for nature, the real healer....
If you can carry out your treatment effectively with diet or with
healing foods, then do not use drugs, for most of them are enemies and
antagonists of nature, especially the purgatives.... Do not despise any
cure of which you hear, for often results may be achieved by simple
means which you could not accomplish with a multiplicity of
prescriptions and medicines.... Reassure and encourage the patient with
the prospect of recovery, even if you are not sure of it, for thus you
will strengthen his nature. ~Isaac Israeli ben Solomon, translated,
quoted in A Middle East Mosaic: Fragments of Life, Letters and History by Bernard Lewis, 2000
Our Creator has given us five senses to help us survive threats from the
external world, and a sixth sense, our healing system, to help us
survive internal threats. ~Bernie Siegel
I've shackled myself with the prison bars of ill health. ~Terri Guillemets
Nothing is more fatal to Health, than an over Care of it. ~Benjamin Franklin
One thing is certain: the time will come when the opinions of priests
and doctors must give way to the science of life; for their opinions
lead to death and misery, and the science of life is health and
happiness. ~Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, March 1861
Human misery universally arises from some error that man admits as true.
We confound our fears with the idea feared, and place the evil in the
thing seen or believed. Here is a great error, for we never see what we
are afraid of. ~Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, 1861
Now, I stand alone on this rock, fighting the errors of this world, and
establish the science of life by my works. What is my mode of warfare?
With the axe of truth I strike at the root of every tree of error and
hew it down, so that there shall not be one error in man showing itself
in the form of disease. ~Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, March 1861
Every one is made of matter, and matter is continually going through a
chemical change. This change is life, not wisdom, but life, like
vegetable or mineral life. Every idea is matter, so of course it
contains life in the name of something that can be changed. Motion, or
change, is life. Ideas have life. A belief has life, or matter; for it
can be changed. Now, all the aforesaid make up man; and all this can be
changed. ~Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, 1861
After I found that mind was matter, I found that ideas were matter
condensed into a solid called disease, and that this, like a book,
contained all the wisdom of its author. Seeing the book,—for sight with
Wisdom embraces all the senses,—I open it, and see through it. To the
patient it is a sealed book; but to Wisdom there is nothing hid which
cannot be revealed or seen, nor so far off that it cannot be reached. So
I read the contents of the book to the patient, and show that it is
false. Then, as the truth changes his mind, light takes the place of the
darkness, till he sees through the error of disease. The light of
Wisdom dissipates the matter, or disease, the patient once more finds
himself freed of opinions, and happiness is restored. ~Phineas Parkhurst
Quimby, August 1861
Disease is the misery of our belief, happiness is the health of our
wisdom, so that man's happiness or misery depends on himself. Now, as
our misery comes from our belief, and not from the thing believed, it is
necessary to be on the watch, so as not to be deceived by false guides.
Sensation contains no intelligence or belief, but is a mere disturbance
of the matter, called agitation, which produces mind, and is ready to
receive the seed of error. Ever since man was created, there has been an
element called error which has been busy inventing answers for every
sensation. ~Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, September 1861
Man is made of opinions,—of truth and error; and his life is a warfare
like all other lives before him.... Man goes on developing error upon
error till he is buried in his own belief.... It is the office of wisdom
to explain the phenomena in man called disease, to show how it is made,
and how it can be unmade. This is as much a science as it is to know
how to decompose a piece of metal. ~Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, December
1861
It may seem strange to those in health that our beliefs affect us. The
fact is, there is nothing of us but belief. It is the whole capital and
stock in trade of man. It is all that can be changed, and embraces
everything man has made or ever will make. ~Phineas Parkhurst Quimby,
1865
Without discipline in spiritual pursuits, the central nervous system
doesn't have a chance to adjust and grow with the increased demand. It
would be like putting a high voltage into a small bulb—it is bound to
explode. ~Swami Sivananda Radha
The stars swirl downward from the blissful heavens, energy of the
universe heals around me, exploding into life, drifting into calmness,
and nothing else matters. ~Terri Guillemets
Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life. ~Buddha