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We must alter theory to adapt it to nature, but not nature to adapt it to theory.

Claude Bernard

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Claude Bernard
Age: 64 †
Born: 1813
Born: July 12
Died: 1878
Died: February 10
Physician Writer
Physiologist
Politician
Professor
Psychologist
Adapt
Alter
Theory
Natural
Science
Nature
Must

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It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.
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The experimenter who does not know what he is looking for will not understand what he finds.
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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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Science admits no exceptions otherwise there would be no determinism in science, or rather, there would be no science.
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Theories are like a stairway by climbing, science widens its horizon more and more, because theories embody and necessarily include proportionately more facts as they advance.
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Our ideas are only intellectual instruments which we use to break into phenomena we must change them when they have served their purpose, as we change a blunt lancet that we have used long enough.
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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.
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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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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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Il ne fallait jamais faire des expériences pour confirmer ses idées, mais simplement pour les contrôler. We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them.
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Hatred is the most clear- sighted, next to genius.
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In the philosophic sense, observation shows and experiment teaches.
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Science rejects the indeterminate.
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The terrain is everything the germ is nothing.
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All the vital mechanisms, varied as they are, have only one object, that of preserving constant the conditions of life in the internal environment.
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Science does not permit exceptions.
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The joy of discovery is certainly the liveliest that the mind of man can ever feel.
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First causes are outside the realm of science.
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The better educated we are and the more acquired information we have, the better prepared shall we find our minds for making great and fruitful discoveries.
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Mediocre men often have the most acquired knowledge
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