Claude Bernard Quotes

Some men covet knowledge out of a natural curiosity and inquisitive temper; some to entertain the mind with variety and delight; some for ornament and reputation; some for victory and contention; many for lucre and a livelihood; and but few for employing the Divine gift of reason to the use and benefit of mankind.

The pursuit of knowledge is an intoxicant, a lure that scientists and explorers have known from ancient times; indeed, exhilaration in the pursuit of knowledge is part of what has kept our species so adaptive.

It is not knowing, but the love of learning, that characterizes the scientific man.

Knowledge we have. Anyone who strives for it with particular intensity is suspect of striving against it.

Curiosity is what separates us from the cabbages. It's accelerative. The more we know, the more we want to know.

Curiosity might be pictured as being made up of chains of small questions extending outwards, sometimes over huge distances, from a central hub composed of a few blunt, large questions.

When I was young my Father used to tell me that the two most worthwhile pursuits in life were the pursuit of truth and of beauty and I believe that Alfred Nobel must have felt much the same when he gave these prizes for literature and the sciences.

In your thirst for knowledge, be sure not to drown in all the information.

Science never gives up searching for truth, since it never claims to have achieved it. It is civilizing because it puts truth ahead of all else, including personal interests.

Science has a simple faith, which transcends utility. It is the faith that it is the privilege of man to learn to understand, and that this is his mission.

To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth.

People always talk about the implication and applications of a process, but for me, the goal is purely about knowledge. Knowledge can become practical today, in 20 years, or in 500 years. Ask Newton. He didn't know there would be space research based on his accident with the apple.

Scientific discovery and scientific knowledge have been achieved only by those who have gone in pursuit of it without any practical purpose whatsoever in view.

The desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it.

It is not his possession of knowledge, of irrefutable truth, that makes the man of science, but his persistent and recklessly critical quest for truth.

The common aim of all science is the gradual removal of prejudice.

It must be for truth's sake, and not for the sake of its usefulness to humanity, that the scientific man studies Nature.

To know how to wonder and question is the first step of the mind toward discovery.

My relationship with science is as someone who's curious and hungry to know, hungry to understand. So all I have to offer is my ignorance and my curiosity, which is a good combination, as long as they come together.

Out of my flesh that hungers and my mouth that knows comes the shape I am seeking for reason.

Knowledge is Power. Ignorance is Bliss. But curiosity—even if it had killed the cat—is king.

I have never been able to understand anyone on this planet who lacks a need for knowledge. Is it not God's greatest gift to us all, this capacity to think, to wonder, to imagine?

The sheer quantity of brain power that hurled itself voluntarily and quixotically into the search for new baseball knowledge was either exhilarating or depressing, depending on how you felt about baseball. The same intellectual resources might have cured the common cold, or put a man on Pluto.

Make curiosity a wonder-ful habit.

Seek wisdom. Wisdom waits to be gathered. She cannot be bartered or sold. She is a fight for the diligent. And only the diligent will find her. The lazy man - the stupid man - never even looks. Though wisdom is available to many, she is found by few. Seek wisdom. Find her, and you will find success and contentment.