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Pythagorean Ethical Sentences
“Medicine heals diseases of the body, wisdom frees the soul from passions.”
Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory
Freeman (1948), p. 149
Variant: Medicine cures the diseases of the body; wisdom, on the other hand, relieves the soul of its sufferings.
“The remedy is worse than the disease.”
Francis Bacon book Essays
Of Seditions and Troubles
Essays (1625)
“There are some remedies worse than the disease.”
Publilio Siro Latin writer
Maxim 301
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave
“A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy.”
Guy Fawkes (1570–1606) English member of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605
Remark (6 November 1605) as quoted in The Dictionary of National Biography Vol. 6 (1917); He is here invoking a version of a famous statement of Hippocrates, also translated as "Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases."
“Fear is the antidote to boredom: the remedy must be stronger than the disease.”
Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
“Resist beginnings; the remedy comes too late when the disease has gained strength by long delays.”
Principiis obsta; sero medicina paratur
Cum mala per longas convaluere moras.
Ovid book Remedia amoris
Source: Remedia Amoris (The Cure for Love), Lines 91–92
John Diamond (doctor) (1934) Australian doctor
Source: The Veneration of Life: Through the Disease to the Soul (1999), p. 9
