Claude Bernard Quotes

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.

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."

[T]heories are only 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.

Leçons sur les Phénomènes de la Vie Communs aux Animaux et aux Végétaux (1878-1879).

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

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 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.

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

[T]he experimental method draws from within itself an impersonal authority which dominates science. It forces this authority even on great men.[…] Every period has its own sum total of errors and of truths. Certain mistakes are, in a sense, inherent in their period, so that only the subsequent progress of science can reveal them.… [T]he further science advances, the more it takes an impersonal form and detaches itself from the past.

[A] living organism is nothing but a wonderful machine.

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

Considered in itself, the experimental method is nothing but reasoning by whose help we methodically submit our ideas to experience,—the experience of facts.

[S]cience, in humbling our pride, proportionately increases our power.

Our language, in fact, is only approximate, and even in science it is so indefinite that if we lose sight of phenomena and cling to words, we are speedily outside of reality.… [W]e must always cling to phenomena and see in words only expressions empty of meaning, if the phenomena they represent are not definite, or if they are absent.

Men who have excessive faith in their theories or ideas are not only ill prepared for making discoveries; they also make very poor observations.

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