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 BERNARDWe must keep our freedom of mind, and must believe that in nature what is absurd, according to our theories, is not always impossible.
More Claude Bernard Quotes
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We must alter theory to adapt it to nature, but not nature to adapt it to theory.
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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.
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We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them.
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First causes are outside the realm of science.
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The terrain is everything; the germ is nothing.
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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. ‘
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A fact in itself is nothing. It is valuable only for the idea attached to it, or for the proof which it furnishes.
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Obervation is a passive science, experimentation is an active science.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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In the philosophic sense, observation shows and experiment teaches.
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Mediocre men often have the most acquired knowledge.
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It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.
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We must keep our freedom of mind, and must believe that in nature what is absurd, according to our theories, is not always impossible.
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Priestley said that each discovery we make shows us many others that should be made.
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A discovery is generally an unforeseen relation not included in theory.
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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.
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But while I accept specialization in the practice, I reject it utterly in the theory of science.
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We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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