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The terrain is everything; the germ is nothing.

Claude Bernard

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
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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Determination Fact Goal Reason Reduce Science
We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Confirm Control Experiment Simplicity
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
Science rejects the indeterminate.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Determination Rejection Science
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
Particular facts are never scientific; only generalization can establish science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Establishment Fact General Science
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
Science does not permit exceptions.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Exception One Liner 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
Man can learn nothing unless he proceeds from the known to the unknown.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Learning Man Unknown
Experiment is fundamentally only induced observation.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Experiment Fundamental Observation
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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Better Discover Education Information Mindset
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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Constitute End Fact Happiness Hard Time Knowledge
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
Feeling alone guides the mind.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Alone Feeling Guide Mindset

The terrain is everything; the germ is nothing.

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The terrain is everything; the germ is nothing.

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