Avicenna Describes His Learning
At night I would return home, set out a lamp before me, and devote myself to reading and writing. Whenever sleep overcame me or I became conscious of weakening, I would turn aside to drink a cup of wine, so that my strength would return to me. Then I would return to reading. And whenever sleep seized me I would see those very problems in my dream; and many questions became clear to me in my sleep. I continued in this until all of the sciences were deeply rooted within me and I understood them as is humanly possible. Everything which I knew at the time is just as I know it now; I have not added anything to it to this day. Thus I mastered the logical, natural, and mathematical sciences, and I had now reached the science.
[...]
I devoted myself to studying the texts—the original and commentaries—in the natural sciences and metaphysics, and the gates of knowledge began opening for me. Next I sought to know medicine, and so read the books written on it. Medicine is not one of the difficult sciences, and therefore, I excelled in it in a very short time, to the point that distinguished physicians began to read the science of medicine under me. I cared for the sick and there opened to me some of the doors of medical treatment that are indescribable and can be learned only from practice. In addition I devoted myself to jurisprudence and used to engage in legal disputations, at that time being sixteen years old.
Notes:
Disciplined, exhaustive, and systematic.
Folksonomies: education learning discipline
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Mathematics (0.971324): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Science (0.778478): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Physics (0.763148): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Medicine (0.760288): dbpedia | freebase
Aristotle (0.748826): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc | yago
Nature (0.651512): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Natural science (0.605585): dbpedia | freebase
Scientific method (0.601341): dbpedia | freebase