Thomas Huxley Quotes About Doubt

Quotes about: Doubt

• Not far from the invention of fire we must rank the invention of doubt.

  Thomas Huxley

  Fire, Doubt, Atheism

  "T. H. Huxley: Scientist, Humanist, and Educator". Book by Cyril Bibby, p. 257, 1950.

• 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

• 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

• 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

• I am content with nothing, restless and ambitious... and I despise myself for the vanity, which formed half the stimulus to my exertions. Oh would that I were one of those plodding wise fools who having once set their hand to the plough go on nothing doubting.

  Thomas Huxley

  Wise, Thinking, Vanity

  "Huxley: From Devil's Disciple to Evolution's High Priest". Book by Adrian Desmond (p. 84), 1997.

• It is not what we believe, but why we believe it. Moral responsibility lies in diligently weighing the evidence. We must actively doubt; we have to scrutinize our views, not take them on trust. No virtue attached to blindly accepting orthodoxy, however 'venerable'.

  Thomas Huxley

  Lying, Believe, Responsibility

• Give unqualified assent to no propositions but those the truth of which is so clear and distinct that they cannot be doubted. The enunciation of this first great commandment of science consecrated doubt.

  Thomas Huxley

  Giving, Doubt, Unqualified

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1872). “Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews”, p.322

• The whole analogy of natural operations furnishes so complete and crushing an argument against the intervention of any but what are termed secondary causes, in the production of all the phenomena of the universe; that, in view of the intimate relations between Man and the rest of the living world; and between the forces exerted by the latter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of Nature's great progression, from the formless to the formed from the inorganic to the organic from blind force to conscious intellect and will.

  Thomas Huxley

  Crush, Men, Views

  "Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature". Book by Thomas Henry Huxley. Chapter 1, p. 28, 1884.

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