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A man of science rises ever, in seeking truth; and if he never finds it in its wholeness, he discovers nevertheless very significant fragments; and these fragments of universal truth are precisely what constitutes science.

Claude Bernard

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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Break Change Enough Ideas Instrument Intellectual Purpose
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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Built Death Fact Material Observation Science
We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Confirm Control Experiment Simplicity
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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Climb Horizon Necessary Proportion Science Theory
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
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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Abandonment Acceptance Believe Conflict Fact Intuition Support Theory
In the philosophic sense, observation shows and experiment teaches.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Experiment Observation Philosophy Teaching
Art is ‘I’; science is ‘we’.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Art Science
Priestley said that each discovery we make shows us many others that should be made.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Discover Science Show
The minds that rise and become really great are never self-satisfied, but still continue to strive.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Greatness Mindset Rise Satisfaction Strive
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 great experimental principle, then, is doubt, that philosophic doubt which leaves to the mind its freedom and initiative, and from which the virtues most valuable to investigators in physiology and medicine are derived.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Doubt Experiment Freedom Greatness Leave Medicine Mindset Principle Virtue
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
It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Deep Knowledge Learning Ourselves Prevent
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
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

A man of science rises ever, in seeking truth; and if he never finds it in its wholeness, he discovers nevertheless very significant fragments; and these fragments of universal truth are precisely what constitutes science.

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A man of science rises ever, in seeking truth; and if he never finds it in its wholeness, he discovers nevertheless very significant fragments; and these fragments of universal truth are precisely what constitutes science.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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