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Portrait of Claude Bernard

Claude Bernard

(1813–1878) Physician Writer

91 quotes in 438 categories

Claude Bernard says science needs curiosity more than just facts. He reminds us that wrong ideas can still lead to discoveries, and that even a tiny amount of a substance can be harmful or helpful. He also believes a researcher should trust the process but keep an open mind.

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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.

Quotes by Claude Bernard

Science rejects the indeterminate.

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Mediocre men often have the most acquired knowledge

Knowledge

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First causes are outside the realm of science.

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

Art

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Experimentation is an active science.

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Feeling alone guides the mind.

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Science does not permit exceptions.

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Hatred is the most clear- sighted, next to genius…

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

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

Education

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

Facts

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The joy of discovery is certainly the liveliest that the mind of man can ever feel.

Desire for knowledge

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A discovery is generally an unforeseen relation not included in theory.

Discovery

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In the philosophic sense, observation shows and experiment teaches.

Experiments

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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…

Beauty

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The mental never influences the physical. It is always the physical that modifies the mental, and when we think that the mind…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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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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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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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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…

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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…

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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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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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When entering on new ground we must not be afraid to express even risky ideas so as to stimulate research in all…

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

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

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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. ...…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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Claude Bernard by topic

Science (70) Research (16) Men (16) Facts (15) Experiments (14) Observation (13) Mind (13) Ideas (13) Discovery (12) Psychology (10)