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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

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

Acceptance Myself Practice Science Theory
Science does not permit exceptions.
CLAUDE BERNARD

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

Condition Environment Object Oneself Preserve
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
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
The science of life is a superb and dazzlingly lighted hall which may be reached only by passing through a long and ghastly kitchen.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Kitchen Life Light Reach Science
A fact in itself is nothing. It is valuable only for the idea attached to it, or for the proof which it furnishes.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Attachment Evidence Fact Ideas Value
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
Effects vary with the conditions which bring them to pass, but laws do not vary. Physiological and pathological states are ruled by the same forces; they differ only because of the special conditions under which the vital laws manifest themselves.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Condition Force Law Manifestation State
In teaching man, experimental science results in lessening his pride more and more by proving to him every day that primary causes, like the objective reality of things, will be hidden from him forever and that he can only know relations.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Experiment Forever Man Reality Relation Science Teaching
We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Confirm Control Experiment Ideas Simplicity
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
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
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

Fragment Man Rise Science Seek Truth

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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