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Science Quotes by Thomas Huxley

71 Science quotes by Thomas Huxley

All Science quotes Thomas Huxley’s page

Thomas Huxley calls science the highest form of common sense, demanding strict observation and ruthless logic. He warns against letting preconceptions jump ahead without strong evidence, urging careful adoption of views. He also reminds that a scientific future will belong to those who think scientifically, no matter the opposition.

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Man's Place in Nature.

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Science is simply common sense at its best.

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Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed.

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Science reckons many prophets, but there is not even a promise of a Messiah.

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

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

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The birth of science was the death of superstition.

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

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Only a scientific people can survive in a scientific future.

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The only people, scientific or other, who never make mistakes are those who do nothing.

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

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Unity of plan everywhere lies hidden under the mask: of diversity of structure-the complex is everywhere evolved out of the simple.

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If there is anything in the world which I do firmly believe in, it is the universal validity of the law of…

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Nothing great in science has ever been done by men, whatever their powers, in whom the divine afflatus of the truth-seeker was…

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

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My reflection, when I first made myself master of the central idea of the 'Origin', was, 'How extremely stupid not to have…

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

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Cherish [Science], venerate her, follow her methods faithfully ... and the future of this people will be greater than the past.

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That which lies before the human race is a constant struggle to maintain and improve, in opposition to State of Nature, the…

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A man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I…

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Within the last fifty years, the extraordinary growth of every department of physical science has spread among us mental food of so…

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Give unqualified assent to no propositions but those the truth of which is so clear and distinct that they cannot be doubted.…

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The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing is, to my mind, a very dangerous adage. If knowledge is real…

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It is given to few to add the store of knowledge, to strike new springs of thought, or to shape new forms…

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Some experience of popular lecturing had convinced me that the necessity of making things plain to uninstructed people, was one of the…

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Surely it must be plain that an ingenious man could speculate without end on both sides, and find analogies for all his…

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The antagonism between science and religion, about which we hear so much, appears to me to be purely factitiousfabricated, on the one…

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To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or sea-side stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works…

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Common sense is science exactly in so far as it fulfills the ideal of common sense; that is, sees facts as they…

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I know no study which is so unutterably saddening as that of the evolution of humanity, as it is set forth in…

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Any one who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the "anticipation…

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I really see no harm which can come of giving our children a little knowledge of physiology. ... The instruction must be…

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Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strongest manner the great truth which is embodied in the Christian conception…

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I conceive that the leading characteristic of the nineteenth century has been the rapid growth of the scientific spirit, the consequent application…

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What men of science want is only a fair day's wages for more than a fair day's work.

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Ecclesiasticism in science is only unfaithfulness to truth

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The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity.

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

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In scientific work, those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact.

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Science is nothing, but trained and organized common sense.

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More by Thomas Huxley

Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with so extraordinary a series of gradations as this [step by step, from humans to apes to…

There is nothing of permanent value (putting aside a few human affections) nothing that satisfies quiet reflection--except the sense of having worked according to…

Economy does not lie in sparing money, but in spending it wisely.

It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts.

Only a scientific people can survive in a scientific future.

Our reverence for the nobility of manhood will not be lessened by the knowledge that man is in substance and in structure, one with…

In science, as in art, and, as I believe, in every other sphere of human activity, there may be wisdom in a multitude of…

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

Oh devil! truth is better than much profit. I have searched over the grounds of my belief, and if wife and child and name…

Let us have "sweet girl graduates" by all means. They will be none the less sweet for a little wisdom; and the "golden hair"…

In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the…

And you very soon find out, if you have not found it out before, that patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than…

No one who has lived in the world as long as you & I have, can entertain the pious delusion that it is engineered…

Mix salt and sand, and it shall puzzle the wisest of men, with his mere natural appliances, to separate all the grains of sand…

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…