Thomas Huxley quotes

It is not who is right, but what is right, that is of importance.

The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.

Science is nothing, but trained and organized common sense.

Patience and tenacity are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.

Science and literature are not two things, but two sides of one thing.

The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.

History warns us that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.

Time, whose tooth gnaws away everything else, is powerless against truth.

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.

If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?

The great thing in the world is not so much to seek happiness as to earn peace and self-respect.

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.

It is one of the most saddening things in life that, try as we may, we can never be certain of making people happy, whereas we can almost always be certain of making them unhappy.

The great thing in the world is not so much to seek happiness as to earn peace and self-respect.

The scientific imagination always restrains itself within the limits of probability.

Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.

The great tragedy of science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.

The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.

Freedom and order are not incompatible... truth is strength... free discussion is the very life of truth.

The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.

No slavery can be abolished without a double emancipation, and the master will benefit by freedom more than the freed-man.

Learn what is true in order to do what is right.

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.

Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men.

The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all other woes of mankind, is wisdom. Teach a man to read and write, and you have put into his hands the great keys of the wisdom box. But it is quite another thing to open the box.

Time, whose tooth gnaws away everything else, is powerless against truth.

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

Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact.

The great tragedy of science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.

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

In science, as in art, and, as I believe, in every other sphere of human activity, there may be wisdom in a multitude of counsellors, but it is only in one or two of them.