Claude Bernard Quotes

It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.

The experimenter who does not know what he is looking for will not understand what he finds.

When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great names and generally accepted.

Man can learn nothing unless he proceeds from the known to the unknown.

The terrain is everything; the germ is nothing.

A fact in itself is nothing. It is valuable only for the idea attached to it, or for the proof which it furnishes.

Art is 'I'; science is 'we'.

Those who do not know the torment of the unknown cannot have the joy of discovery.

Science increases our power in proportion as it lowers our pride.

All the vital mechanisms, varied as they are, have only one object, that of preserving constant the conditions of life in the internal environment.

True science teaches us to doubt and, in ignorance, to refrain.

The doubter is a true man of science: he doubts only himself and his interpretations, but he believes in science.

The science of life is a superb and dazzlingly lighted hall which may be reached only by passing through a long and ghastly kitchen.

In science, the best precept is to alter and exchange our ideas as fast as science moves ahead.

The true worth of an experimenter consists in his pursuing not only what he seeks in his experiment, but also what he did not seek.

Put off your imagination, as you put off your overcoat, when you enter the laboratory. Put it on again, as you put on your overcoat, when you leave.

Hatred is the most clear- sighted, next to genius.

We must alter theory to adapt it to nature, but not nature to adapt it to theory.‎

Feeling alone guides the mind.

Science does not permit exceptions.

The joy of discovery is certainly the liveliest that the mind of man can ever feel.

Mediocre men often have the most acquired knowledge

[Those] who have an excessive faith in their theories or in their ideas are not only poorly disposed to make discoveries, but they also make very poor observations.

The better educated we are and the more acquired information we have, the better prepared shall we find our minds for making great and fruitful discoveries.

The investigator should have a robust faith - and yet not believe.

Theories are like a stairway; by climbing, science widens its horizon more and more, because theories embody and necessarily include proportionately more facts as they advance.

Now, a living organism is nothing but a wonderful machine endowed with the most marvellous properties and set going by means of the most complex and delicate mechanism.

The first requirement in using statistics is that the facts treated shall be reduced to comparable units.

The goal of scientific physicians in their own science ... is to reduce the indeterminate. Statistics therefore apply only to cases in which the cause of the facts observed is still indeterminate.

Obervation is a passive science, experimentation is an active science.

In the philosophic sense, observation shows and experiment teaches.

The mental never influences the physical. It is always the physical that modifies the mental, and when we think that the mind is diseased, it is always an illusion.

A discovery is generally an unforeseen relation not included in theory.

Il ne fallait jamais faire des expériences pour confirmer ses idées, mais simplement pour les contrôler. We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them.

Science admits no exceptions; otherwise there would be no determinism in science, or rather, there would be no science.

Well-observed facts, though brought to light by passing theories, will never die; they are the material on which alone the house of science will at last be built.

Priestley [said] that each discovery we make shows us many others that should be made.

The stability of the internal medium is a primary condition for the freedom and independence of certain living bodies in relation to the environment surrounding them.

A contemporary poet has characterized this sense of the personality of art and of the impersonality of science in these words,-'Art is myself; science is ourselves. '

The fact that knowledge endlessly recedes as the investigator is about to grasp it is what constitutes at the same time his torment and happiness.

Our ideas are only intellectual instruments which we use to break into phenomena; we must change them when they have served their purpose, as we change a blunt lancet that we have used long enough.

But while I accept specialization in the practice, I reject it utterly in the theory of science.

Science rejects the indeterminate.

Experiment is fundamentally only induced observation.

A great discovery is a fact whose appearance in science gives rise to shining ideas, whose light dispels many obscurities and shows us new paths.

Tout est poison, rien n'est poison, tout est une question de dose. Everything is poisonous, nothing is poisonous, it is all a matter of dose.

Particular facts are never scientific; only generalization can establish science.

We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them.

First causes are outside the realm of science.

We must keep our freedom of mind, ... and must believe that in nature what is absurd, according to our theories, is not always impossible.