Thomas Huxley Quotes About Science

Quotes about: Science

• Science is simply common sense at its best.

  Thomas Huxley

  Motivational, Math, Science

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1902). “An Introduction to the Study of Zoology, Illustrated by the Crayfish”

• The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity.

  Thomas Huxley

  Life, Success, Children

• The great tragedy of science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.

  Thomas Huxley

  Beauty, Beautiful, Education

  "Biogenesis and Abiogenesis" (1870)

• Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact.

  Thomas Huxley

  Beautiful, Science, Common Sense

• The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.

  Thomas Huxley

  Faith, Believe, Science

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1908). “Aphorisms and Reflections from the Works of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.4, Library of Alexandria

• Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.

  Thomas Huxley

  Science, Common Sense, Logic

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1902). “An Introduction to the Study of Zoology, Illustrated by the Crayfish”

• Science has fulfilled her function when she has ascertained and enunciated truth.

  Thomas Huxley

  Science, Function, Accounts

  Thomas H. Huxley (2013). “Man's Place in Nature”, p.128, Courier Corporation

• Common sense is science exactly in so far as it fulfills the ideal of common sense; that is, sees facts as they are, or at any rate, without the distortion of prejudice, and reasons from them in accordance with the dictates of sound judgment. And science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.

  Thomas Huxley

  Science, Common Sense, Sound

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1920). “An Introduction to the Study of Zoology”, Concept Publishing Company

• Science and literature are not two things, but two sides of one thing.

  Thomas Huxley

  Science, Technology, Two Sides

  Leonard Huxley, Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.310, Cambridge University Press

• The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing is, to my mind, a very dangerous adage. If knowledge is real and genuine, I do not believe that it is other than a very valuable posession, however infinitesimal its quantity may be. Indeed, if a little knowledge is dangerous, where is a man who has so much as to be out of danger?

  Thomas Huxley

  Real, Believe, Knowledge

  'Collected Essays' vol. 3 (1895) 'On Elementary Instruction in Physiology' (written 1877)

• If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?

  Thomas Huxley

  Leadership, Sports, Freedom

  'Collected Essays' vol. 3 (1895) 'On Elementary Instruction in Physiology' (written 1877)

• Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.

  Thomas Huxley

  Truth, Lying, Science

  'Science and Culture and Other Essays' (1881) 'The Coming of Age of the Origin of Species'

• The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.

  Thomas Huxley

  Science, Sin, Blind

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2006). “Huxley's Autobiography and Essays”, p.176, Cosimo, Inc.

• [Scientists] have learned to respect nothing but evidence, and to believe that their highest duty lies in submitting to it however it may jar against their inclinations.

  Thomas Huxley

  Lying, Believe, Science

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.106, University of Georgia Press

• The birth of science was the death of superstition.

  Thomas Huxley

  Death, Science, Superstitions

• A man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling it would rather be a man who plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric.

  Thomas Huxley

  Real, Science, Men

  Quoted in Leonard Huxley, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (1900)

• Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed.

  Thomas Huxley

  Suicide, Believe, Science

  Leonard Huxley, Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.422, Cambridge University Press

• As for your doctrines I am prepared to go to the Stake if requisite ... I trust you will not allow yourself to be in any way disgusted or annoyed by the considerable abuse & misrepresentation which unless I greatly mistake is in store for you... And as to the curs which will bark and yelp - you must recollect that some of your friends at any rate are endowed with an amount of combativeness which (though you have often & justly rebuked it) may stand you in good stead - I am sharpening up my claws and beak in readiness.

  Thomas Huxley

  Mistake, Science, Annoyed

• The only objections that have occurred to me are, 1st that you have loaded yourself with an unnecessary difficulty in adopting Natura non facit saltum so unreservedly. . . . And 2nd, it is not clear to me why, if continual physical conditions are of so little moment as you suppose, variation should occur at all. However, I must read the book two or three times more before I presume to begin picking holes.

  Thomas Huxley

  Book, Science, Two

• That which lies before the human race is a constant struggle to maintain and improve, in opposition to State of Nature, the State of Art of an organized polity; in which, and by which, man may develop a worthy civilization

  Thomas Huxley

  Art, Nature, Lying

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.307, University of Georgia Press

• Unity of plan everywhere lies hidden under the mask: of diversity of structure-the complex is everywhere evolved out of the simple.

  Thomas Huxley

  Lying, Science, Simple

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1872). “Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews”, p.101

• I know no study which is so unutterably saddening as that of the evolution of humanity, as it is set forth in the annals of history. Out of the darkness of prehistoric ages man emerges with the marks of his lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute, only more intelligent than the other brutes, a blind prey to impulses, which as often as not led him to destruction; a victim to endless illusions, which make his mental existence a terror and a burden, and fill his physical life with barren toil and battle.

  Thomas Huxley

  Strong, Science, Intelligent

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.277, University of Georgia Press

• It is an error to imagine that evolution signifies a constant tendency to increased perfection. That process undoubtedly involves a constant remodeling of the organism in adaptation to new conditions; but it depends on the nature of those conditions whether the direction of the modifications effected shall be upward or downward.

  Thomas Huxley

  Science, Errors, Perfection

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2004). “Evolution And Ethics”, p.247, 1st World Publishing

• As I have already urged, the practice of that which is ethically best - what we call goodness or virtue - involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless selfassertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect , but shall help his fellows. It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence. Laws and moral precepts are directed to the end of curbing the cosmic process.

  Thomas Huxley

  Struggle, Science, Self

  "Evolution And Ethics".

• It is a popular delusion that the scientific enquirer is under an obligation not to go beyond generalisation of observed facts...but anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond the facts, rarely get as far.

  Thomas Huxley

  Science, Facts, Delusion

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