Paracelsus Quotes on Nature
Paracelsus, the Swiss-German physician and natural philosopher, made the close study of nature the foundation of his revolt against received medicine, and the quotes gathered here present that. His most famous principle, the foundation of toxicology, holds that all things are poison and the dose alone makes the poison. For Paracelsus nature itself is the supreme authority, the great teacher of which the physician is merely the translator, and he condemned the physician who mistakes himself for more intelligent than Nature as nature's enemy. He saw the natural world as a single interrelated whole in which what is hidden must be uncovered for the good in it to shine forth. Drawn from his medical and alchemical writings, these passages present nature as teacher, standard, and the proper object of humble, patient study.
Quotes
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“All things are poison; the dose alone makes the poison.”
The Third Defense -
Attributed to Paracelsus:
“Nature is the great teacher; the physician is her translator.”
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“Destruction perfects that which is good; for the good cannot appear on account of that which conceals it. The good is least good whilst it is thus concealed. The concealment must be removed so that the good may be able freely to appear in its own brightness. For example, the mountain, the sand, the earth, or the stone in which a metal has grown is such a concealment. Each one of the visible metals is a concealment of the other six metals.”
Hermetic and Alchemical Writings (1894), edited by Arthur Edward Waite; Coelum Philosophorum or Book of Vexations , originally 1543 -
“All is interrelated. Heaven and earth, air and water. All are but one thing; not four, not two and not three, but one. Where they are not together, there is only an incomplete piece.”
Paracelsus - Collected Writings Vol. I (1926) edited by Bernhard Aschner, p. 110 -
“Who else is the enemy of Nature but he who mistakes himself for more intelligent than Nature, though it is the highest school for all of us?”
Paracelsus - Doctor of our Time(1992) -
“In us there is the Light of Nature, and that Light is God.”
Paracelsus - Doctor of our Time(1992)