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Portrait of Claude Bernard

Claude Bernard

(1813–1878) Physician Writer

91 quotes in 438 categories

Claude Bernard’s reflections echo the rigor and curiosity of a pioneering scientist. This set of ninety‑one quotes offers a concise look at his approach to inquiry, highlighting the logical clarity that defined his contributions.

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Claude Bernard was a physician writer, best known for Antonio Lopez-Garcia.

Quick Facts About Claude Bernard

Born: July 12, 1813
Died: February 10, 1878
Profession: Physician Writer
Notable works: Antonio Lopez-Garcia

About Claude Bernard

Claude Bernard was a French physiologist. I. Bernard Cohen of Harvard University called Bernard "one of the greatest of all men of science". He originated the term milieu intérieur and the associated concept of homeostasis.

Biography source: Wikipedia

Quotes by Claude Bernard

Mediocre men often have the most acquired knowledge

Knowledge

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Science rejects the indeterminate.

Rejects

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Art is 'I'; science is 'we'.

Art

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Experimentation is an active science.

Active

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Feeling alone guides the mind.

Feeling

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First causes are outside the realm of science.

Accounts

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The terrain is everything; the germ is nothing,

Funny

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Experiment is fundamentally only induced observation.

Experiment

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Particular facts are never scientific; only generalization can establish science.

Facts

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The first requirement in using statistics is that the facts treated shall be reduced to comparable units.

Data

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Those who do not know the torment of the unknown cannot have the joy of discovery.

Discovery

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Man can learn nothing unless he proceeds from the known to the unknown.

Education

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The investigator should have a robust faith - and yet not believe.

Believe

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Science increases our power in proportion as it lowers our pride.

Increase

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

Accepting

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In the philosophic sense, observation shows and experiment teaches.

Experiments

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Science admits no exceptions; otherwise there would be no determinism in science, or rather, there would be no science.

Determinism

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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…

Abandon

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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…

Absurd

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The stability of the internal medium is a primary condition for the freedom and independence of certain living bodies in relation to…

Body

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Well-observed facts, though brought to light by passing theories, will never die; they are the material on which alone the house of…

Accounts

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We must remain, in a word, in an intellectual disposition which seems paradoxical, but which, in my opinion, represents the true mind…

Belief

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A great discovery is a fact whose appearance in science gives rise to shining ideas, whose light dispels many obscurities and shows…

Appearance

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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…

Accounts

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Men who have excessive faith in their theories ... make poor observations, because they choose among the results of their experiments only…

Combat

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The first entirely vital action, so termed because it is not effected outside the influence of life, consists in the creation of…

Action

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In a word, I consider hospitals only as the entrance to scientific medicine; they are the first field of observation which a…

Analysis

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In every enterprise ... the mind is always reasoning, and, even when we seem to act without a motive, an instinctive logic…

Business

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Even mistaken hypotheses and theories are of use in leading to discoveries. This remark is true in all the sciences. The alchemists…

Able

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Proof that a given condition always precedes or accompanies a phenomenon does not warrant concluding with certainty that a given condition is…

Accompany

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It is impossible to devise an experiment without a preconceived idea; devising an experiment, we said, is putting a question; we never…

Absolutes

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Real science exists, then, only from the moment when a phenomenon is accurately defined as to its nature and rigorously determined in…

Accounts

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Laplace considers astronomy a science of observation, because we can only observe the movements of the planets; we cannot reach them, indeed,…

Astronomy

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As soon as the circumstances of an experiment are well known, we stop gathering statistics. ... The effect will occur always without…

Causes

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The physiologist is not a man of the world, he is a scientist, a man caught and absorbed by a scientific idea…

Animal

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Man does not limit himself to seeing; he thinks and insists on learning the meaning of phenomena whose existence has been revealed…

Answers

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When a physician is called to a patient, he should decide on the diagnosis, then the prognosis, and then the treatment. ...…

Accounts

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Even mistaken hypotheses and theories are of use in leading to discoveries. This remark is true in all the sciences. The alchemists…

Able

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I do not ... reject the use of statistics in medicine, but I condemn not trying to get beyond them and believing…

Believe

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To be worthy of the name, an experimenter must be at once theorist and practitioner. While he must completely master the art…

Able

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Claude Bernard by topic

Science (70) Theory (16) Research (16) Men (16) Facts (15) Experiments (14) Observation (13) Mind (13) Ideas (13) Discovery (12) Psychology (10) Life (9) Inspirational (8) Accounts (8)