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

Claude Bernard

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

Believe Doubt Man Science True
But while I accept specialization in the practice, I reject it utterly in the theory of science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Acceptance Myself Practice Science Theory
With the aid of these active experimental sciences man becomes an inventor of phenomena, a real foreman of creation; and under this head we cannot set limits to the power that he may gain over nature through future progress of the experimental sciences.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Active Creation Experiment Head Limitation Nature Progress Science
If I had to define life in a single phrase, I should clearly express my thought of throwing into relief one characteristic which, in my opinion, sharply differentiates biological science. I should say: life is creation.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Character Clear Creation Expression Life Science
We must remain, in a word, in an intellectual disposition which seems paradoxical, but which, in my opinion, represents the true mind of the investigator. We must have a robust faith and yet not believe.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Believe Faith Intellectual Opinion Word
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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Excess Faith Ideas Observation Poor Theory
Science increases our power in proportion as it lowers our pride.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Lower Ourselves Power Pride Science
When entering on new ground we must not be afraid to express even risky ideas so as to stimulate research in all directions. As Priestley put it, we must not remain inactive through false modesty based on fear of being mistaken.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Afraid Direction Fear Ground Ideas Mistake Modesty Risk
Particular facts are never scientific; only generalization can establish science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Establishment Fact General Science
Those who do not know the torment of the unknown cannot have the joy of discovery.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Discover Hard Time Joy Struggle
Mediocre men often have the most acquired knowledge. It is in the darker. It is in the darker regions of science that great men are recognized; they are marked by ideas which light up phenomena hitherto obscure and carry science forward.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Average Darkness Greatness Knowledge Man Recognition Science
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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Delicate Live Mechanism Organism Property Wonderful
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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Imagination Leaving Science Yourself
Experiment is fundamentally only induced observation.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Experiment Fundamental Observation
We must alter theory to adapt it to nature, but not nature to adapt it to theory.‎
CLAUDE BERNARD

Adapt Nature Theory
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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Body Environment Freedom Independence Live Medium Stability
Science admits no exceptions; otherwise there would be no determinism in science, or rather, there would be no science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Admit Determination Exception Science
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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Experiment Himself Seek True Worth
We achieve more than we know. We know more than we understand. We understand more than we can explain.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Achievement Explanation Team Work Understand
We must keep our freedom of mind, and must believe that in nature what is absurd, according to our theories, is not always impossible.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Absurd Believe Freedom Impossible Mindset Nature
In science, the best precept is to alter and exchange our ideas as fast as science moves ahead.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Ahead exchange Fast Ideas Move Science
Men who believe too firmly in their theories, do not believe enough in the theories of others. So these despisers of their fellows make experiments only to destroy a theory, instead of to seek the truth.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Believe Enough Firm Man Seek Theory Truth
Art is ‘I’; science is ‘we’.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Art Science
It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Deep Knowledge Learning Ourselves Prevent
Everything is poisonous, nothing is poisonous, it is all a matter of dose.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Amount Poison Portion
Mediocre men often have the most acquired knowledge.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Anand Thakur
The eloquence of a scientist is clarity; scientific truth is always more luminous when its beauty is unadorned than when it is tricked out in the embellishments with which our imagination would seek to clothe it.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Beautiful Imagination Ourselves Science Truth

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

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

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