Thomas Huxley Quotes - Page 11

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The only question which any wise man can ask himself, and which any honest man will ask himself, is whether a doctrine is true or false.

Thomas Huxley

Wise, Men, True Or False

Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.244, Cambridge University Press

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The most considerable difference I note among men is not in their readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to acknowledge these inevitable lapses.

Thomas Huxley

Fall, Humility, Men

Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.157, Cambridge University Press

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Agnosticism simply means that a man shall not say that he knows or believes that for which he has no grounds for professing to believe.

Thomas Huxley

Believe, Mean, Men

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I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything...

Thomas Huxley

Science, Too Much, Possibility

Letter to Herbert Spencer, March 22, 1886.

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It ought not to be unpleasant to say that which one honestly believes or disbelieves. That it so constantly is painful to do so, is quite enough obstacle to the progress of mankind in that most valuable of all qualities, honesty of word or of deed.

Thomas Huxley

Honesty, Believe, Religion

Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.241, Cambridge University Press

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Science is nothing but trained and organized common sense differing from the latter only as a veteran may differ from a raw recruit: and its methods differ from those of common sense only as far as the guardsman's cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields his club.

Thomas Huxley

Cutting, Science, Common Sense

"On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences" (1854)

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I really see no harm which can come of giving our children a little knowledge of physiology. ... The instruction must be real, based upon observation, eked out by good explanatory diagrams and models, and conveyed by a teacher whose own knowledge has been acquired by a study of the facts; and not the mere catechismal parrot-work which too often usurps the place of elementary teaching.

Thomas Huxley

Education, Teacher, Children

Thomas Henry Huxley (1882). “Science and Culture: And Other Essays”

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As to sagacity, I should say that his judgement respecting the warmest place and the softest cushion in a room is infallible, his punctuality at meal times is admirable, and his pertinacity in jumping on people's shoulders till they give him some of the best of what is going, indicates great firmness.

Thomas Huxley

Cat, Jumping, People

Thomas Henry Huxley, Leonard Huxley (1900). “Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley”

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Living things have no inertia, and tend to no equilibrium.

Thomas Huxley

Life, Science, Equilibrium

Thomas Henry Huxley (1872). “Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews”, p.73

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Mathematics may be compared to a mill of exquisite workmanship, which grinds you stuff of any degree of fineness; but, nevertheless, what you get out depends upon what you put in; and as the grandest mill in the world will not extract wheat-flour from peascods, so pages of formulae will not get a definite result out of loose data.

Thomas Huxley

Work, Data, May

"Geological Reform". Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, Volume 25, 1869.

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It may be quite true that some negroes are better than some white men; but no rational man, cognisant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the average white man. And, if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed, and our prognathous relative has a fair field and no favour, as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete successfully with his bigger-brained and smaller-jawed rival, in a contest which is to be carried on by thoughts and not by bites.

Thomas Huxley

Believe, Men, Thinking

"Emancipation – Black and White". Essay by Thomas Henry Huxley, mathcs.clarku.edu. 1865.

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There is no alleviation for the sufferings of mankind except veracity of thought and of action, and the resolute facing of the world as it is when the garment of make-believe by which pious hands have hidden its uglier features is stripped off.

Thomas Huxley

Integrity, Believe, Hands

Thomas Henry Huxley (1908). “Aphorisms and Reflections from the Works of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.1, Library of Alexandria

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I cannot but think that he who finds a certain proportion of pain and evil inseparably woven up in the life of the very worms, will bear his own share with more courage and submission.

Thomas Huxley

Life, Courage, Pain

Thomas Henry Huxley (1870). “Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews”, p.90, Adam, Stevenson

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What men need is, as much knowledge as they can assimilate and organize into a basis for action; give them more and it may become injurious. One knows people who are as heavy and stupid from undigested learning .

Thomas Huxley

Stupid, Men, Giving

"A Library of Universal Literature in Four Parts, Comprising Science, Biography, Fiction and the Great Orations".

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If then, said I, the question is put to me would I rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessing great means and influence and yet who employs those faculties for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion-I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape.

Thomas Huxley

Mean, Men, Grandfather

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Nothing great in science has ever been done by men, whatever their powers, in whom the divine afflatus of the truth-seeker was wanting.

Thomas Huxley

Truth, Men, Done

Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.56, Cambridge University Press

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No mistake is so commonly made by clever people as that of assuming a cause to be bad because the arguments of its supporters are, to a great extent, nonsensical

Thomas Huxley

Clever, Mistake, People

Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.70, Cambridge University Press

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The mathematician starts with a few propositions, the proof of which is so obvious that they are called self-evident, and the rest of his work consists of subtle deductions from them. The teaching of languages, at any rate as ordinarily practiced, is of the same general nature authority and tradition furnish the data, and the mental operations are deductive.

Thomas Huxley

Nature, Work, Teaching

Thomas Henry Huxley (1872). “Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews”, p.66

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Mathematics may be compared to a mill of exquisite workmanship, which grinds your stuff to any degree of fineness.

Thomas Huxley

Math, Stuff, Degrees

Thomas Henry Huxley, Henrietta A. Huxley (1908). “Aphorisms and reflections”

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In truth, the laboratory is the forecourt of the temple of philosophy, and whoso has not offered sacrifices and undergone purification there has little chance of admission into the sanctuary.

Thomas Huxley

Philosophy, Sacrifice, Temples

Thomas Henry Huxley, Cyril Bibby (1971). “T. H. Huxley on Education”, p.166, Cambridge University Press

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The very existence of society depends on the fact that every member of it tacitly admits he is not the exclusive possessor of himself, and that he admits the claim of the polity of which he forms a part, to act, to some extent, as his master.

Thomas Huxley

Government, Society, Facts

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That which endures is not one or another association of living forms, but the process of which the cosmos is the product, and of which these are among the transitory expressions.

Thomas Huxley

Expression, Survival, Cosmos

Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.286, University of Georgia Press

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Though under-instruction is a bad thing, it is not impossible that over-instruction may be worse.

Thomas Huxley

Education, May, Impossible

Leonard Huxley, Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.220, Cambridge University Press

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Unfortunately, it is much easier to shut one's eyes to good than to evil. Pain and sorrow knock at our doors more loudly than pleasure and happiness; and the prints of their heavy footsteps are less easily effaced.

Thomas Huxley

Pain, Eye, Doors

Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.323, University of Georgia Press

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As a natural process, of the same character as the development of a tree from its seed, or of a fowl from its egg, evolution excludes creation and all other kinds of supernatural intervention.

Thomas Huxley

Character, Eggs, Tree

Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.287, University of Georgia Press

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Born: May 4, 1825
Died: June 29, 1895
Occupation: Biologist
Cite this Page: Citation

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