Julian Huxley Quotes

Quotes about:

• The implications of the transfer of full sovereignty from separate nations to a World Organization. . .Political unification in some sort of World Government will be required. . .Even though. . . any radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, with the greatest care, and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable.

  Julian Huxley

  Government, Years, Organization

  33 Copy quote

• As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends to compensatingly increase and the dictator... will do well to encourage that freedom in conjunction with the freedom to daydream under the influence of dope, movies, and radio. It will help to reconcile his subjects to the servitude which is their fate.

  Julian Huxley

  Fate, Dope, Political

  36 Copy quote

• The sense of spiritual relief which comes from rejecting the idea of God as a supernatural being is enormous.

  Julian Huxley

  Spiritual, Ideas, Supernatural Beings

  60 Copy quote

• The human race will be the cancer of the planet.

  Julian Huxley

  Inspirational, Cancer, Race

  35 Copy quote

• The lowest strata are reproducing too fast. Therefore... they must not have too easy access to relief or hospital treatment lest the removal of the last check on natural selection should make it too easy for children to be produced or to survive; long unemployment should be a ground for sterilisation.

  Julian Huxley

  Children, Long, Relief

  Julian Huxley (1944). “Man in the Modern World”

  37 Copy quote

• Sir Julian Huxley, one of the world's leading evolutionists, head of UNESCO, descendant of Thomas Huxley - Darwin's bulldog - said on a talk show, 'I suppose the reason we leaped at The Origin of Species was because the idea of God interfered with our sexual mores.'.

  Julian Huxley

  Ideas, Bulldogs, World

  47 Copy quote

• It is easier to believe that there was nothing before there was something than that there was something before there was nothing.

  Julian Huxley

  Believe, Easier

  15 Copy quote

• It is essential for evolution to become the central core of any educational system, because it is evolution, in the broad sense, that links inorganic nature with life, and the stars with the earth, and matter with mind, and animals with man. Human history is a continuation of biological evolution in a different form.

  Julian Huxley

  Stars, Educational, Men

  31 Copy quote

• Darwinism removed the whole idea of God as the creator from the sphere of rational discussion.

  Julian Huxley

  Ideas, Spheres, Rational

  22 Copy quote

• Human potentialities constitute the world's greatest resource.

  Julian Huxley

  World, Resources, Human Potential

  "The New Divinity". "Essays of a Humanist". Book by Julian Huxley, 1964.

  4 Copy quote

• Sooner or later, false thinking brings wrong conduct.

  Julian Huxley

  Thinking, Atheism, Positive Atheism

  "Traveller's Library (Religion and Science: Old Wine in New Bottles)". Book edited by William Somerset Maugham, 1933.

  10 Copy quote

• The god hypothesis is no longer of any pragmatic value for the interpretation or comprehension of nature, and indeed often stands in the way of better and truer interpretation. Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler, but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire Cat.

  Julian Huxley

  Cat, Fading, Way

  'Religion without Revelation' (1957 ed.) ch. 3

  17 Copy quote

• This earth is one of the rare spots in the cosmos where mind has flowered. Man is a product of nearly three billion years of evolution, in whose person the evolutionary process has at last become conscious of itself and its possibilities. Whether he likes it or not, he is responsible for the whole further evolution of our planet.

  Julian Huxley

  Men, Years, Mind

  "The New Divinity". "Essays of a Humanist". Book by Julian Huxley, 1964.

  19 Copy quote

• We are beginning to realize that even the most fortunate people are living far below capacity, and that most human beings develop not more than a small fraction of their potential mental and spiritual efficiency. The human race, in fact, is surrounded by a large area of unrealized possibilities, a challenge to the spirit of exploration.

  Julian Huxley

  Spiritual, Race, People

  Julian Huxley (1957). “New Bottles for New Wine: Essays”

  11 Copy quote

• Evolution is nothing but matter become conscious of itself.

  Julian Huxley

  Matter, Evolution, Conscious

  13 Copy quote

• Many people assert that this abandonment of the god hypothesis means the abandonment of all religion and all moral sanctions. This is simply not true. But it does mean, once our relief at jettisoning an outdated piece of ideological furniture is over, that we must construct something to take its place.

  Julian Huxley

  Mean, People, Doe

  "Essays of a Humanist (The New Divinity)". Book by Julian Huxley, 1964.

  23 Copy quote

• Evolution... is the most powerful and the most comprehensive idea that has ever arisen on Earth.

  Julian Huxley

  Powerful, Science, Ideas

  6 Copy quote

• ...any belief in supernatural creators, rulers, or influencers of natural or human process introduces an irreparable split into the universe, and prevents us from grasping its real unity. Any belief in Absolutes, whether the absolute validity of moral commandments, of authority of revelation, of inner certitudes, or of divine inspiration, erects a formidable barrier against progress and the responsibility of improvement, moral, rational, and religious.

  Julian Huxley

  Religious, Real, Inspiration

  13 Copy quote

• To speculate without facts is to attempt to enter a house of which one has not the key, by wandering aimlessly round and round, searching the walls and now and then peeping through the windows. Facts are the key.

  Julian Huxley

  Wall, Science, Keys

  5 Copy quote

• Today the god hypothesis has ceased to be scientifically tenable, has lost its explanatory value and is becoming an intellectual and moral burden to our thought. It no longer convinces or comforts, and its abandonment often brings a deep sense of relief.

  Julian Huxley

  Atheist, Relief, Today

  "Essays of a Humanist (The New Divinity)". Book by Julian Huxley, 1964.

  10 Copy quote

• By death the moon was gathered in Long ago, ah long ago;
  Yet still the silver corpse must spin
  And with another's light must glow.
  Her frozen mountains must forget
  Their primal hot volcanic breath,
  Doomed to revolve for ages yet,
  Void amphitheatres of death.
  And all about the cosmic sky,
  The black that lies beyond our blue,
  Dead stars innumerable lie,
  And stars of red and angry hue
  Not dead but doomed to die.

  Julian Huxley

  Death, Stars, Lying

  19 Copy quote

• God is one among several hypotheses to account for the phenomena of human destiny, and it is now proving to be an inadequate hypothesis. To a great many people, including myself, this realization is a great relief, both intellectually and morally. It frees us to explore the real phenomena for which the God hypothesis seeks to account, to define them more accurately, and to work for a more satisfying set of concepts.

  Julian Huxley

  God, Religious, Real

  13 Copy quote

• There are thus two tasks for the Mass Media division of Unesco, the one general, the other special. The special one is to enlist the press and the radio and the cinema to the fullest extent in the service of formal and adult education, of science and learning, of art and culture. The general one is to see that these agencies are used both to contribute to mutual comprehension between different nations and cultures, and also to promote the growth of a common outlook shared by all nations and cultures.

  Julian Huxley

  Art, Agency, Media

  6 Copy quote

• Some day no one will have to work more than two days a week... The human being can consume so much and no more. When we reach the point when the world produces all the goods that it needs in two days, as it inevitably will, we must curtail our production of goods and turn our attention to the great problem of what to do with our new leisure.

  Julian Huxley

  Two, World, Leisure

  "Prof. Huxley Predicts 2-Day Working Week". The New York Times (p. 42), November 17, 1930.

  19 Copy quote

• The scientific doctrine of progress is destined to replace not only the myth of progress, but all other myths of human earthly destiny. It will inevitably become one of the cornerstones of man's theology, or whatever may be the future substitute for theology, and the most important external support for human ethics.

  Julian Huxley

  Science, Destiny, Men

  Julian Huxley (1957). “New Bottles for New Wine: Essays”

  8 Copy quote

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