Thomas Huxley

Thomas Huxley

Biologist, Anthropologist

Thomas Huxley was a prominent English biologist known for his defense of Darwin's theory of evolution and his contributions to scientific thought.

Men Science Believe Education Lying People
Born
February 4, 1825
Died
June 29, 1895
Quotes
294
Rank
#715

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Thomas Huxley quotes (page 14 of 15)

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Thomas Huxley Biologist, Anthropologist
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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."

Beautiful Men Evil
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Thomas Huxley Biologist, Anthropologist
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"The antagonism between science and religion, about which we hear so much, appears to me to be purely factitiousfabricated, on the one hand, by short-sighted religious people who confound a certain branch of science, theology, with religion; and, on the other, by equally short-sighted scientific people who forget that science takes for its province only that which is susceptible of clear intellectual comprehension; and that, outside the boundaries of that province, they must be content with imagination, with hope, and with ignorance"

Religious Ignorance Hands
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Thomas Huxley Biologist, Anthropologist
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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."

Education Country Art
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Thomas Huxley Biologist, Anthropologist
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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."

Philosophy Sacrifice Temples
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Thomas Huxley Biologist, Anthropologist
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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."

Government Society Facts
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"Some experience of popular lecturing had convinced me that the necessity of making things plain to uninstructed people, was one of the very best means of clearing up the obscure corners in one's own mind."

Mean Science People
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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."

Truth Men Done
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"Surely it must be plain that an ingenious man could speculate without end on both sides, and find analogies for all his dreams. Nor does it help me to tell me that the aspirations of mankind"

Dream Science Men
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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."

Integrity Believe Hands
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Thomas Huxley Biologist, Anthropologist
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"There is no sadder sight in the world than to see a beautiful theory killed by a brutal fact."

Beautiful Sight World
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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."

Nature Work Teaching
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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."

Expression Survival Cosmos
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"I conceive that the leading characteristic of the nineteenth century has been the rapid growth of the scientific spirit, the consequent application of scientific methods of investigation to all the problems with which the human mind is occupied, and the correlative rejection of traditional beliefs which have proved their incompetence to bear such investigation."

Rejection Mind Growth
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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."

Believe Men Thinking
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"It seems safe to look forward to the time when the conception of attractive and repulsive forces, having served its purpose as a useful piece of scientific scaffolding, will be replaced by the deduction of the phenomena known as attraction and repulsion, from the general laws of motion."

Law Looks Purpose
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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."

Education Teaching Men
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"No one can help another very much in these crises of life; but love and sympathy count for something."

Helping Crisis
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"The more rapidly truth is spread among mankind the better it will be for them. Only let us be sure that it is the truth."

Truth Is Mankind Spread
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"I cannot say that I am in the slightest degree impressed by your bigness, or your material resources, as such. Size is not grandeur, and territory does not make a nation. The great issue, about which hangs true sublimity, and the terror of overhanging fate, is what are you going to do with all these things?"

Fate Issues Degrees
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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."

Science Greatness Men
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