The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci

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CORNELIUS CELSUS.

The highest good is wisdom, the chief evil is suffering in the body.
Because, as we are composed of two things, that is soul and body, of
which the first is the better, the body is the inferior; wisdom
belongs to the better part, and the chief evil belongs to the worse
part and is the worst of all. As the best thing of all in the soul
is wisdom, so the worst in the body is suffering. Therefore just as
bodily pain is the chief evil, wisdom is the chief good of the soul,
that is with the wise man; and nothing else can be compared with it.

[Footnote: _Aulus Cornelius Celsus_, a Roman physician, known as the
Roman Hippocrates, probably contemporary with Augustus. Only his
eight Books 'De Medicina', are preserved. The earliest editions are:
_Cornelius Celsus, de medicina libr. VIII._, Milan 1481 Venice 1493
and 1497.]

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