The study of medicine was, in its own way, something to love in place of a missing family.

It is just as easy to bring death to man, and I’ve done so. It’s harder to keep hold of life, harder still to maintain a grasp on health. Those are the tasks to which we must keep our minds.

The four elements: earth, water, fire and air; the qualities recognized by touch: cold, heat, dryness, and moisture; the temperaments: sanguineous, phlegmatic, choleric, and saturnine; the faculties: natural, animal, and vital.

Have you considered,” Rob said slowly, “how each faith claims that it alone has God’s heart and ear? We, you, and Islam – each vows it is the true religion. Can it be that we’re all three wrong?” “Perhaps we’re all three right,” Mirdin said.

I tell myself that some might be saved if I knew more.

Mankind is close to savagery and must live by rules. If not, we would sink into our own animal nature and perish.

You must never forget that dealing with a monarch is not like dealing with an ordinary man,” Ibn Sina said. “A king is not like you or me. He drops a hand carelessly and someone like us is put to death. Or he wiggles a finger and someone is allowed to live. That is absolute power, and no man born of woman is able to resist it. It drives even the best of monarchs slightly mad.

Life is glorious, but it can be counted on to be cruel.

Medicine is like the slow raising of masonry,” Rob said. “We are fortunate, in a lifetime, to be able to lay a single brick. If we can explain the disease, someone yet unborn may devise a cure.

To hold a human soul in the palm of your hand like a pebble. To feel somebody slip away, yet by your actions to bring her back! Not even a king had such power.