Thomas Huxley Quotes - Page 8

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Not only do I disbelieve in the need for compensation, but I believe that the seeking for rewards and punishments out of this lifeleads men to a ruinous ignorance of the fact that their inevitable rewards and punishments are here.

Thomas Huxley

Believe, Ignorance, Men

Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.360, University of Georgia Press

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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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To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or sea-side stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall. Teach him something of natural history, and you place in his hands a catalogue of those which are worth turning around. Surely our innocent pleasures are not so abundant in this life, that we can afford to despise this or any other source of them.

Thomas Huxley

Education, Country, Art

"On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences". Book by Thomas Huxley (p. 29), 1854.

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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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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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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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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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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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I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic'.

Thomas Huxley

Titles, Agnostic, Appropriate

'Collected Essays' (1893-94) 'Agnosticism'

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That man, I think, has had a liberal education, who has been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will.

Thomas Huxley

Education, Teaching, Men

Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.211, University of Georgia Press

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There are some men who are counted great because they represent the actuality of their own age, and mirror it as it is. Such an one was Voltaire, of whom it was epigrammatically said: "he expressed everybody's thoughts better than anyone." But there are other men who attain greatness because they embody the potentiality of their own day and magically reflect the future. They express the thoughts which will be everybody's two or three centuries after them. Such as one was Descartes.

Thomas Huxley

Science, Greatness, Men

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If the perpetual oscillation of nations between anarchy and despotism is to be replaced by the steady march of self-restraining freedom, it will be because men will gradually bring themselves to deal with political, as they now deal with scientific questions.

Thomas Huxley

Men, Self, Political

Thomas Henry Huxley (2006). “Huxley's Autobiography and Essays”, p.234, Cosimo, Inc.

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Every philosophical thinker hails it [The Origin of Species] as a veritable Whitworth gun in the armoury of liberalism.

Thomas Huxley

Philosophical, Gun, Philosopher

"Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews".

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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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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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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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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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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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The struggle for existence holds as much in the intellectual as in the physical world. A theory is a species of thinking, and its right to exist is coextensive with its power of resisting extinction by its rivals.

Thomas Huxley

Struggle, Science, Thinking

Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.229, Cambridge University Press

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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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The besetting sin of able men is impatience of contradiction and of criticism. Even those who do their best to resist the temptation, yield to it almost unconsciously and become the tools of toadies and flatterers. "Authorities," "disciples," and "schools" are the curse of science and do more to interfere with the work of the scientific spirit than all its enemies.

Thomas Huxley

School, Men, Yield

Thomas Henry Huxley (1967). “The Essence of T. H. Huxley: Selections Form His Writings”

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

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