“ It was badly received by the generation to which it was first addressed, and the outpouring of angry nonsense to which it gave rise is sad to think upon. But the present generation will probably behave just as badly if another Darwin should arise, and inflict upon them that which the generality of mankind most hate—the necessity of revising their convictions. Let them, then, be charitable to us ancients; and if they behave no better than the men of my day to some new benefactor, let them recollect that, after all, our wrath did not come to much, and vented itself chiefly in the bad language of sanctimonious scolds. Let them as speedily perform a strategic rightaboutface, and follow the truth wherever it leads. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 3.2K
“ The scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 845
“ What we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 706
“ What we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 3.2K
“ I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 1.9K
“ The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land, to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions. And even a cursory glance at the history of the biological sciences during the last quarter of a century is sufficient to justify the assertion, that the most potent instrument for the extension of the realm of natural knowledge which has come into men's hands, since the publication of Newton's ‘Principia’, is Darwin's ‘Origin of Species. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 78
“ From the dawn of exact knowledge to the present day, observation, experiment, and speculation have gone hand in hand; and, whenever science has halted or strayed from the right path, it has been, either because its votaries have been content with mere unverified or unverifiable speculation (and this is the commonest case, because observation and experiment are hard work, while speculation is amusing); or it has been, because the accumulation of details of observation has for a time excluded speculation. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 3.8K
“ I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 1.7K
“ It was badly received by the generation to which it was first addressed, and the outpouring of angry nonsense to which it gave rise is sad to think upon. But the present generation will probably behave just as badly if another Darwin should arise, and inflict upon them that which the generality of mankind most hate—the necessity of revising their convictions. Let them, then, be charitable to us ancients; and if they behave no better than the men of my day to some new benefactor, let them recollect that, after all, our wrath did not come to much, and vented itself chiefly in the bad language of sanctimonious scolds. Let them as speedily perform a strategic rightaboutface, and follow the truth wherever it leads. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 2.7K
“ The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land, to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions. And even a cursory glance at the history of the biological sciences during the last quarter of a century is sufficient to justify the assertion, that the most potent instrument for the extension of the realm of natural knowledge which has come into men's hands, since the publication of Newton's ‘Principia’, is Darwin's ‘Origin of Species. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 660
“ What we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 614
“ 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 Henry Huxley- Copy
- 467
“ The scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 517
“ From the dawn of exact knowledge to the present day, observation, experiment, and speculation have gone hand in hand; and, whenever science has halted or strayed from the right path, it has been, either because its votaries have been content with mere unverified or unverifiable speculation (and this is the commonest case, because observation and experiment are hard work, while speculation is amusing); or it has been, because the accumulation of details of observation has for a time excluded speculation. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 255
“ But anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond fact, rarely get as far as fact; and anyone who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the 'anticipation of Nature,' that is, by the invention of hypotheses, which, though verifiable, often had very little foundation to start with. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 2K
“ Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 3.4K
“ Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 1.8K
“ The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 3.2K
“ History warns us... that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 2.4K
“ It sounds paradoxical to say the attainment of scientific truth has been effected, to a great extent, by the help of scientific errors. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 1.4K
“ History warns us... that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 2.7K
“ 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 Henry Huxley- Copy
- 305
“ The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 3K
“ The foundation of all morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying; to give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibilities of knowledge. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 3.7K
“ Education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 1.7K
“ Science is simply common sense at its best that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 341
“ The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher. ”
- Thomas Henry Huxley- Copy
- 1.8K
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