Thomas Huxley Quotes - Page 4

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• Proclaim human equality as loudly as you like, Witless will serve his brother.

  Thomas Huxley

  Brother, Equality, Human Equality

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1901). “Collected Essays”

  10 Copy quote

• Thoughtfulness for others, generosity, modesty, and self-respect are the qualities which make a real gentleman or lady.

  Thomas Huxley

  Inspirational, Real, Self

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.257, Cambridge University Press

  64 Copy quote

• Make up your mind to act decidedly and take the consequences. No good is ever done in this world by hesitation.

  Thomas Huxley

  Self Confidence, Mind, Acting

  Leonard Huxley, Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.116, Cambridge University Press

  43 Copy quote

• Education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature, under which name I include not merely things and their forces, but people and their ways; and the fashioning of the affections and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those laws.

  Thomas Huxley

  Education, Moving, Law

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1880). “On the Origin of Species; Or, The Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature. A Course of Six Lectures ...”

  8 Copy quote

• A man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling it would rather be a man who plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric.

  Thomas Huxley

  Real, Science, Men

  Quoted in Leonard Huxley, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (1900)

  9 Copy quote

• Our reverence for the nobility of manhood will not be lessened by the knowledge that man is in substance and in structure, one with the brutes; for he alone possesses the marvellous endowment of intelligible and rational speech whereby he has slowly accumulated and organized the experience which is almost wholly lost with the cessation of individual life in other animals; so that he now stands raised above it as on a mountain-top, far above the level of his humble fellows, and transfigured from his grosser nature by reflecting, here and there, a ray from the infinite source of truth.

  Thomas Huxley

  Humble, Animal, Men

  1880 Man's Place in Nature.

  13 Copy quote

• I have always been, am, and propose to remain a mere scholar. All that I have ever proposed to myself is to say, this and this I have learned; thus and thus have I learned it; go thou and learn better; but do not thrust on my shoulders the responsibility for your own laziness if you elect to take, on my authority, conclusions the value of which you ought to have tested for yourself.

  Thomas Huxley

  Education, Responsibility, Learning

  5 Copy quote

• Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with so extraordinary a series of gradations as this [step by step, from humans to apes to monkeys to lemurs] - leading us insensibly from the crown and summit of the animal creation down to creatures, from which there is but a step, as it seems, to the lowest, smallest, and least intelligent of the placental Mammalia. It is as if nature herself had forseen the arrogance of man, and with Roman severity had provided that his intellect, by its very triumphs, should call into prominence the slaves, admonishing the conqueror that he is but dust.

  Thomas Huxley

  Intelligent, Men, Animal

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  53 Copy quote

• Agnosticism is not properly described as a "negative" creed, nor indeed as a creed of any kind, except in so far as it expresses absolute faith in the validity of a principle which is as much ethical as intellectual.

  Thomas Huxley

  Intellectual, Principles, Negative

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2012). “Lectures and Essays”, p.247, tredition

  7 Copy quote

• I hated tobacco. I could have almost lent my support to any institution that had for its object the putting of tobacco smokers to death...I now feel that smoking in moderation is a comfortable and laudable practice, and is productive of good. There is no more harm in a pipe than in a cup of tea. You may poison yourself by drinking too much green tea, and kill yourself by eating too many beefsteaks. For my part, I consider that tobacco, in moderation, is a sweetener and equalizer of the temper.

  Thomas Huxley

  Drinking, Practice, Support

  16 Copy quote

• The best men of the best epochs are simply those who make the fewest blunders and commit the fewest sins.

  Thomas Huxley

  Men, Sin, Blunders

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.277, University of Georgia Press

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• Do what you can to do what you ought, and leave hoping and fearing alone.

  Thomas Huxley

  Strategy, Ought

  Thomas Henry Huxley, Cyril Bibby (1971). “T. H. Huxley on Education”, p.134, Cambridge University Press

  4 Copy quote

• It is the first duty of a hypothesis to be intelligible.

  Thomas Huxley

  Math, Statistics, Firsts

  Man's Place in Nature II (p. 126)

  4 Copy quote

• Books are the money of Literature, but only the counters of Science.

  Thomas Huxley

  Money, Book, Reading

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.213, Cambridge University Press

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Thomas Huxley

  Ocean, Land, Generations

  Thomas Henry Huxley “Selected Works of Thomas Henry Huxley”, Library of Alexandria

  7 Copy quote

• There is no sadder sight in the world than to see a beautiful theory killed by a brutal fact.

  Thomas Huxley

  Beautiful, Sight, World

  4 Copy quote

• I can assure you that there is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life. You learn that which is of inestimable importance that there are a great many people in the world who are just as clever as you are. You learn to put your trust, by and by, in an economy and frugality of the exercise of your powers, both moral and intellectual; and you very soon find out, if you have not found it out before, that patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.

  Thomas Huxley

  Clever, Exercise, People

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1900). “Collected Essays”

  4 Copy quote

• The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing is, to my mind, a very dangerous adage. If knowledge is real and genuine, I do not believe that it is other than a very valuable posession, however infinitesimal its quantity may be. Indeed, if a little knowledge is dangerous, where is a man who has so much as to be out of danger?

  Thomas Huxley

  Real, Believe, Knowledge

  'Collected Essays' vol. 3 (1895) 'On Elementary Instruction in Physiology' (written 1877)

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• I protest that if some great Power would agree to make me always think what is true and do what is right, on condition of being turned into a sort of clock and would up every morning before I got out of bed, I should instantly close with the offer.

  Thomas Huxley

  Morning, Freedom, Science

  'Collected Essays' (1893-94) 'On Descartes' 'Discourse on Method" (written 1870)

  6 Copy quote

• And when you cannot prove that people are wrong, but only that they are absurd, the best course is to let them alone.

  Thomas Huxley

  People, Absurd, Prove

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.246, University of Georgia Press

  4 Copy quote

• A drop of water is as powerful as a thunder-bolt.

  Thomas Huxley

  Powerful, Water, Thunder

  32 Copy quote

• The rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature.

  Thomas Huxley

  Expanding Universe, Law, Games

  'Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews' (1870) 'A Liberal Education'

  38 Copy quote

• I have never been able to understand why pigeon-shooting at Hurlingham should be refined and polite, while a rat-killing match in Whitechapel is low.

  Thomas Huxley

  Pigeons, Shooting, Rats

  Thomas Henry Huxley, Cyril Bibby (1971). “T. H. Huxley on Education”, p.120, Cambridge University Press

  4 Copy quote

• Teach a child what is wise, that is morality. Teach him what is wise and beautiful, that is religion!

  Thomas Huxley

  Beautiful, Wise, Children

  Leonard Huxley, Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.32, Cambridge University Press

  7 Copy quote

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