Frasi di Claude Bernard

“Lo scienziato non ricerca per piacere di ricercare; egli cerca la verità per possederla e la possiede già nei limiti indicati dalla scienza nel suo stato attuale.”

“Uno degli ostacoli maggiori che l'uomo incontra lungo il cammino della conoscenza è rappresentato dalla tendenza delle acquisizioni umane a trasformarsi in sistemi.”

“Sono convinto che verrà un giorno in cui il fisiologo, il poeta e il filosofo parleranno la stessa lingua. ”

“Il vero spirito filosofico è quello che con le alte aspirazioni feconda la scienza e la spinge a ricercare verità ancora sconosciute.”

“La medicina sperimentale non è altro che un ragionamento per mezzo del quale si sottopongono le idee al controllo dei fatti.”

“La mente dell'uomo non può immaginare un effetto senza una causa, così che la vista di un fenomeno risveglia sempre un'idea di causa.”

“La vera scienza non sopprime nulla, ma cerca sempre e guarda in faccia senza scomporsi le cose che non comprende ancora.”

“Per il fisiologo sperimentatore non esistono spiritualismo né materialismo, essendo spirito e materia realtà inconoscibili. Il metodo sperimentale della scienza non è la ricerca delle cause prime, ma dei rapporti fra le cose e i fenomeni che ne derivano. Pertanto parole come «vita», «morte», «salute», «malattia», sono soltanto «espressioni letterarie» utili per rappresentare alla nostra mente l'apparenza di questi fenomeni.”

“It's what we think we know that keeps us from learning.”

“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.”

“The science of life is a superb and dazzlingly lighted hall which may be reached only by passing through a long and ghastly kitchen.”

“A modern poet has characterized the personality of art and the impersonality of science as follows: Art is I: Science is We.”

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

“Science does not permit exceptions.”

“Observation is a passive science, experimentation an active science.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The stability of the internal medium is a primary condition for the freedom and independence of certain living bodies in relation to the environment surrounding them.”

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

“All the vital mechanisms, varied as they are, have only one object, that of preserving constant the conditions of life in the internal environment.”

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

“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.”

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

“A great surgeon performs operations for stone by a single method; later he makes a statistical summary of deaths and recoveries, and he concludes from these statistics that the mortality law for this operation is two out of five. Well, I say that this ratio means literally nothing scientifically and gives us no certainty in performing the next operation; for we do not know whether the next case will be among the recoveries or the deaths. What really should be done, instead of gathering facts empirically, is to study them more accurately, each in its special determinism…. to discover in them the cause of mortal accidents so as to master the cause and avoid the accidents.”

“Science repulses the indefinite.”

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