Antigonus, having taken one of his soldiers into a great degree of favor and esteem for his valor, gave his physicians strict charge to cure him of a long and inward disease under which he had a great while languished, and observing that, after his cure, he went much more coldly to work than before, he asked him what had so altered and cowed him: “Yourself, sir, ” replied the other, “by having eased me of the pains that made me weary of my life. Michel De Montaigne
About This Quote

This story of Antigonus of Carystus is one of the most famous parables of the history of medicine. The physician who cured the soldier of his ailment was probably Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine. His cure may be regarded as one of the first examples of psychotherapy. It illustrates that it is possible for a patient, even one suffering from a life-threatening disease, to derive some satisfaction from treatment. In fact, though the man may have been cured, he did not go back to his former state of helplessness.

Source: The Complete Essays

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More Quotes By Michel De Montaigne
  1. If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.

  2. The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.

  3. I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.

  4. I quote others only in order the better to express myself.

  5. Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.

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