Thomas Henry Huxley Quotes

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.

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

The most considerable difference I note among men is not in their readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to acknowledge these inevitable lapses.

Of moral purpose I see no trace in Nature. That is an article of exclusively human manufacture and very much to our credit.

To a clear eye the smallest fact is a window through which the infinite may be seen.

There are savages without God in any proper sense of the word, but none without ghosts.

Can any one deny that the old Israelites conceived Jahveh not only in the image of a man, but in that of a changeable, irritable, and, occasionally, violent man?

The scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.

I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything.

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

What we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts.

For once reality and his brains came into contact and the result was fatal.

In fact a favourite problem of [John Tyndall] is—Given the molecular forces in a mutton chop, deduce Hamlet or Faust therefrom. He is confident that the Physics of the Future will solve this easily.

Let us understand, once for all, that the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it.

The most considerable difference I note among men is not in their readiness to fall into error but in their readiness to acknowledge these inevitable lapses.

Act decidedly and take the consequences. No good is ever done by hesitation.