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
The constancy of the internal environment is the condition for free and independent life: the mechanism that makes it possible is that which assured the maintenance, with the internal environment, of all the conditions necessary for the life of the elements.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Maintaining a stable internal environment is crucial for life and independence.
This quote by Claude Bernard emphasizes the importance of homeostasis in living organisms, suggesting that a stable internal environment is essential for survival and autonomy. It points out that all life forms depend on specific internal conditions to flourish, highlighting the intricate mechanisms that help maintain these conditions, which are critical for sustaining life.
Themes
HomeostasisLifeInternal EnvironmentStabilityIndependence
In practice
Example use cases
In a biology class, when discussing the importance of physiological regulation.
More from Claude Bernard
All quotes →When 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
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.
Claude BernardRead
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