The Physician (2013)
Ben Kingsley: Ibn Sina
Photos
Quotes
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Ibn Sina : Because there is nothing to be afraid of. Death is merely a threshold we must all cross... into the silence, after the final heartbeat... drifting away with our final exhalation... into eternal peace...
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Ibn Sina : This is the burden every physician must learn to bear. You can't look upon death as the enemy.
Rob Cole : Than what? A friend?
Ibn Sina : [looking to the sky] I've calculated the orbits of all these stars and planets. Filled volumes with calculations. I have barely scratched the real secrets of creation.
Rob Cole : Isn't it frustrating there's so much you don't know?
Ibn Sina : No. It fills me with awe. How pale and tedious would this world be without mystery.
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Ibn Sina : What is it like?
Rob Cole : Inside?
Ibn Sina : [nods]
Rob Cole : It is both... beautiful... and frightening.
Ibn Sina : Go on.
Rob Cole : I saw the heart!
Ibn Sina : Describe it.
Rob Cole : It has two chambers with an impassable wall in between.
Ibn Sina : So how does the blood get from one side to the other?
Rob Cole : By way of the lungs, I think.
Ibn Sina : So all our theories of human circulation would be... wrong.
Rob Cole : Master, nothing is as it is in the books! Nothing!
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Ibn Sina : You seem more interested in medicine than my other patients.
Rob Cole : I've come to be a student of Ibn Sina.
Ibn Sina : Have you now?
Rob Cole : I've been told he's the greatest healer in all the world.
Ibn Sina : No he's not that great. Quite ordinary, really.
Rob Cole : Do you know him?
Ibn Sina : A little better each day.
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Rob Cole : When the plague came, you were as helpless as a beach is to the advance of the sea. The tide washed over us and dragged our people away, and we could do nothing to stop it.
Ibn Sina : You ask of medicine what only Allah can perform. Or Yahweh.
Rob Cole : Do you never doubt your calling?
Ibn Sina : Every morning and every evening. In between I work too hard to think about it.