Q0556

“The soul has health and sickness just as the body has health…” — Al-Farabi (Selected Aphorisms §1 (Butterworth))

Verified English quotation. Primary source: Selected Aphorisms §1 (Butterworth). Theme: virtue.

English

The soul has health and sickness just as the body has health and sickness.
Thinker Al-Farabi
School Islamic Philosophy
Source Selected Aphorisms §1 (Butterworth)
Theme Virtue
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source and attribution

The archive attributes this English wording to Selected Aphorisms §1 (Butterworth) and files it under Islamic Philosophy. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

About Al-Farabi

Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī (c. 870–950), later called the ‘Second Teacher’ after Aristotle, worked mainly in Baghdad and Syria.

How to read this passage

Virtue ethics asks not only which acts are right, but what kind of person one becomes. Courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom are classic Western lists; Confucian ren and yi offer related but distinct vocabularies. This passage enters that discussion through virtue, politics.

Concepts in this quote

Virtue
Virtue names excellences of character—habits of perception and action oriented toward the good.
Politics
Politics appears in this archive as a live philosophical concern—not a slogan. These verified English passages show how thinkers treat politics as a problem of judgment, practice, or explanation.

How to cite this quotation

APA: Al-Farabi. (n.d.). The soul has health and sickness just as the body has health and sickness. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0556

MLA: Al-Farabi. “The soul has health and sickness just as….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0556.

Chicago: Al-Farabi. “The soul has health and sickness just as….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0556.

Frequently asked questions

What is the source of the quotation “The soul has health and sickness just as…”?

The passage is attributed to Al-Farabi, Selected Aphorisms §1 (Butterworth). The archive attributes this English wording to Selected Aphorisms §1 (Butterworth) and files it under Islamic Philosophy. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

What does Al-Farabi mean by virtue?

Virtue ethics asks not only which acts are right, but what kind of person one becomes. Courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom are classic Western lists; Confucian ren and yi offer related but distinct vocabularies. This passage enters that discussion through virtue, politics.

Same thinker

More from Al-Farabi

  1. The health of the soul is for its traits to be traits by which it does good, fine, and noble actions.
  2. The excellent city is the one in which people cooperate toward the things by which true happiness is attained.
  3. Happiness is the good desired for its own sake; it is never desired for the sake of something else.
  4. The statesman and the king are like the physician: they seek the health of the city as the physician seeks the health of the body.
  5. Political science inquires into the kinds of voluntary actions and ways of life, and into the happiness that is the end of the human being.

All quotations by Al-Farabi

Same theme

More on virtue

  1. Withdraw into yourself and look.
  2. This very practice of philosophers is a release and separation of soul from body.
  3. Philosophy is the cultivation of the soul.
  4. Every human soul has by nature beheld the things that are.
  5. Suppose a person were created at once, fully mature, but with sight veiled and limbs outstretched so that he touched nothing; he would affirm his own existence without affirming any body.

Browse the virtue theme