Thomas Huxley Quotes - Page 8

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• Fact I know; and Law I know; but what is this Necessity, save an empty shadow of my own mind's throwing?

  Thomas Huxley

  Law, Mind, Shadow

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.191, University of Georgia Press

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• There is no sea more dangerous than the ocean of practical politics none in which there is more need of good pilotage and of a single, unfaltering purpose when the waves rise high.

  Thomas Huxley

  Ocean, Sea, Purpose

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1917). “Method and Results: Essays”

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• What are the moral convictions most fondly held by barbarous and semi-barbarous people? They are the convictions that authority is the soundest basis of belief; that merit attaches to readiness to believe; that the doubting disposition is a bad one, and skepticism is a sin.

  Thomas Huxley

  Believe, Government, People

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1872). “Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews”, p.17

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• Social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step and the substitution for it of another, which may be called the ethical process; the end of which is not the survival of those who may happen to be the fittest, in respect of the whole of the conditions which obtain, but of those who are ethically the best.

  Thomas Huxley

  Mean, Survival, Progress

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.327, University of Georgia Press

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• I have endeavoured to show that no absolute structural line of demarcation, wider than that between the animals which immediately succeed us in the scale, can be drawn between the animal world and ourselves; and I may add the expression of my belief that the attempt to draw a physical distinction is equally futile, and that even the highest faculties of feeling and of intellect begin to germinate in lower forms of life.

  Thomas Huxley

  Animal, Expression, Feelings

  "Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature". Book by Thomas Henry Huxley. Chapter 2, p. 129, 1863.

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• Not only does every animal live at the expense of some other animal or plant, but the very plants are at war.... The individuals of a species are like the crew of a foundered ship, and none but good swimmers have a chance of reaching the land.

  Thomas Huxley

  War, Animal, Land

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.18, Cambridge University Press

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• The clergy are at present divided into three sections: an immense body who are ignorant; a small proportion who know and are silent; and a minute minority who know and speak according to their knowledge.

  Thomas Huxley

  Ignorant, Three, Minorities

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• Life is like walking along a crowded street--there always seem to be fewer obstacles to getting along on the opposite pavement--and yet, if one crosses over, matters are rarely mended.

  Thomas Huxley

  Life, Opposites, Matter

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

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• Only one absolute certainty is possible to man, namely that at any given moment the feeling which he has exists.

  Thomas Huxley

  Men, Feelings, Absolute Certainty

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

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• I doubt the fact, to begin with, but if it be so even, what is this but in grand words asking me to believe a thing because I like it.

  Thomas Huxley

  Believe, Doubt, Atheism

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.358, University of Georgia Press

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• Better live a crossing-sweeper than die and be made to talk twaddle by a "medium" hired at a guinea a seance.

  Thomas Huxley

  Atheism, Guinea, Made

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1903). “Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley”

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• Science is nothing, but trained and organized common sense.

  Thomas Huxley

  Science, Common Sense, Common

  'Collected Essays' (1893-94) 'The Method of Zadig'

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• The facts of variability, of the struggle for existence, of adaptation to conditions, were notorious enough; but none of us had suspected that the road to the heart of the species problem lay through them, until Darwin and Wallace dispelled the darkness.

  Thomas Huxley

  Struggle, Heart, Darkness

  Leonard Huxley, Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.246, Cambridge University Press

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• The occurrence of successive forms of life upon our globe is an historical fact, which cannot be disputed; and the relation of these successive forms, as stages of evolution of the same type, is established in various cases.

  Thomas Huxley

  Historical, Facts, Evolution

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.102, Cambridge University Press

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• There is no greater mistake than the hasty conclusion that opinions are worthless because they are badly argued.

  Thomas Huxley

  Mistake, Opinion, Conclusion

  Method and Results The Progress of Science (p. 369)

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• The scientific imagination always restrains itself within the limits of probability.

  Thomas Huxley

  Imagination, Limits, Probability

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2012). “Collected Essays, Volume V Science and Christian Tradition: Essays”, p.138, tredition

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• Natural knowledge, seeking to satisfy natural wants, has found the ideas which can alone still spiritual cravings. I say that natural knowledge, in desiring to ascertain the laws of comfort, has been driven to discover those of conduct, and to lay the foundations of a new morality.

  Thomas Huxley

  Spiritual, Science, Ideas

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2006). “Huxley's Autobiography and Essays”, p.168, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Mix salt and sand, and it shall puzzle the wisest of men, with his mere natural appliances, to separate all the grains of sand from all the grains of salt; but a shower of rain will effect the same object in ten minutes.

  Thomas Huxley

  Nature, Rain, Science

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1870). “Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews”, p.296, Adam, Stevenson

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• You may read any quantity of books, and you may almost as ignorant as you were at starting, if you don't have, at the back of yourminds, the change for words in definite images which can only be acquired through the operation of your observing faculties on the phenomena of nature.

  Thomas Huxley

  Book, Ignorant, May

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1877). “American Addresses: With a Lecture on the Study of Biology”, p.153

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• It may be well to remember that the highest level of moral aspiration recorded in history was reached by a few ancient Jews--Micah, Isaiah, and the rest--who took no count whatever of what might not happen to them after death. It is not obvious to me why the same point should not by and by be reached by the Gentiles.

  Thomas Huxley

  Afterlife, Levels, May

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

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• Material advancement has its share in moral and intellectual progress. Becky Sharp's acute remark that it is not difficult to be virtuous on ten thousand a year has its applications to nations; and it is futile to expect a hungry and squalid population to be anything but violent and gross.

  Thomas Huxley

  Years, Intellectual, Progress

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

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• Cosmic evolution may teach us how the good and evil tendencies of man may have come about; but, in itself, it is incompetent to furnish any better reason why what we call good is preferable to what we call evil than we had before. Some day, I doubt not, we shall arrive at an understanding of the evolution of the aesthetic faculty; but all the understanding in the world will neither increase nor diminish the force of the intuition that this is beautiful and that is ugly.

  Thomas Huxley

  Beautiful, Men, Evil

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.80, Cambridge University Press

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• The science, the art, the jurisprudence, the chief political and social theories, of the modern world have grown out of Greece and Rome-not by favour of, but in the teeth of, the fundamental teachings of early Christianity, to which science, art, and any serious occupation with the things of this world were alike despicable.

  Thomas Huxley

  Art, Teaching, Rome

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.315, Cambridge University Press

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• Genius, as an explosive power, beats gunpowder hollow.

  Thomas Huxley

  Power, Gunpowder, Genius

  Leonard Huxley, Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.53, Cambridge University Press

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• The dogma of the infallibility of the Bible is no more self-evident than is that of the infallibility of the popes.

  Thomas Huxley

  Bible, Self, Dogma

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2012). “Collected Essays, Volume V Science and Christian Tradition: Essays”, p.40, tredition

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