Claude Bernard quotes

Claude Bernard was a renowned French physiologist, considered one of the founders of experimental medicine. His groundbreaking research laid the foundation for understanding the internal environment of living organisms. He transformed physiology into a rigorous scientific discipline and remains a lasting influence in the field. Here are 30 of his quotes:

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

Claude Bernard

Science does not permit exceptions.

Claude Bernard

Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown.

Claude Bernard

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

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

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

Claude Bernard

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

We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them.

Claude Bernard

The mental never influences the physical. It is always the physical that modifies the mental, and when we think that the mind is diseased, it is always an illusion.

Claude Bernard

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

Claude Bernard

Indeed, proof that a given condition always precedes or accompanies a phenomenon does not warrant concluding with certainty that a given condition is the immediate cause of that phenomenon. It must still be established that when this condition is removed, the phenomen will no longer appear.

Claude Bernard

True science teaches us to doubt and to abstain from ignorance.

Claude Bernard

It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.

Claude Bernard

The experimenter who does not know what he is looking for will not understand what he finds.

Claude Bernard

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

Science rejects the indeterminate.

Claude Bernard

Mediocre men often have the most acquired knowledge.

Claude Bernard

If I had to define life in a word, it would be: Life is creation.

Claude Bernard

Theories are only verified hypotheses, verified by more or less numerous facts. Those verified by the most facts are the best, but even then they are never final, never to be absolutely believed.

Claude Bernard

Ardent desire for knowledge, in fact, is the one motive attracting and supporting investigators in their efforts; and just this knowledge, really grasped and yet always flying before them, becomes at once their sole torment and their sole happiness.... 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

They make poor observations, because they choose among the results of their experiments only what suits their object, neglecting whatever is unrelated to it and carefully setting aside everything which might tend toward the idea they wish to combat.

Claude Bernard

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