The first requirement in using statistics is that the facts treated shall be reduced to comparable units.

A great discovery is a fact whose appearance in science gives rise to shining ideas, whose light dispels many obscurities and shows us new paths.

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

Priestley [said] that each discovery we make shows us many others that should be made.

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.

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.

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.