Tout est poison, rien n'est poison, tout est une question de dose. Everything is poisonous, nothing is poisonous, it is all a matter of dose.
Claude BernardRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Living organisms are intricate machines with remarkable abilities driven by complex mechanisms.
In this quote, Claude Bernard emphasizes the extraordinary nature of living organisms, likening them to machines but highlighting their complexity and the delicate systems that enable life. This perspective reflects the intricate arrangements of biological systems and the sophistication of life itself, challenging us to appreciate the marvels of nature and biology.
Themes
OrganismMachineComplexityBiologyMechanism
In practice
Example use cases
In a biology class discussing the nature of life and living systems.
More from Claude Bernard
All quotes βWhen a physician is called to a patient, he should decide on the diagnosis, then the prognosis, and then the treatment. ... Physicians must know the evolution of the disease, its duration and gravity in order to predict its course and outcome. Here statistics intervene to guide physicians, by teaching them the proportion of mortal cases, and if observation has also shown that the successful and unsuccessful cases can be recognized by certain signs, then the prognosis is more certain.
Claude BernardRead
The goal of scientific physicians in their own science ... is to reduce the indeterminate. Statistics therefore apply only to cases in which the cause of the facts observed is still indeterminate.
Claude BernardRead
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.
Claude BernardRead
True science teaches us to doubt and, in ignorance, to refrain.
Claude BernardRead
The experimenter who does not know what he is looking for will not understand what he finds.
Claude BernardRead
Similar quotes
Science is often misrepresented as "the body of knowledge acquired by performing replicated controlled experiments in the laboratory." Actually, science is something broader: the acquisition of reliable knowledge about the world.
Jared DiamondRead
Science has to be understood in its broadest sense, as a method for apprehending all observable reality, and not merely as an instrument for acquiring specialized knowledge.
Alexis CarrelRead
To demonstrate experimentally that a microscopic organism actually is the cause of a disease and the agent of contagion, I know no other way, in the present state of Science, than to subject the microbe (the new and happy term introduced by M. SΓ©dillot) to the method of cultivation out of the body.
Louis PasteurRead
Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.
Niels BohrRead
This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right.
Michael CrichtonRead
We've learned that musical ability is actually not one ability but a set of abilities, a dozen or more. Through brain damage, you can lose one component and not necessarily lose the others. You can lose rhythm and retain pitch, for example, that kind of thing.
Daniel LevitinRead