Thomas Huxley

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

— Thomas Huxley

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

— Thomas Huxley

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

— Thomas Huxley

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

— Thomas Huxley

Only a scientific people can survive in a scientific future.

— Thomas Huxley

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

— Thomas Huxley

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

— Thomas Huxley

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

— Thomas Huxley

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

— Thomas Huxley

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

— Thomas Huxley

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

— Thomas Huxley

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

— Thomas Huxley

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

— Thomas Huxley

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

— Thomas Huxley

What are the moral convictions most fondly held by barbarous and semi-barbarous people? They are the convictions that authority is the soundest…

— Thomas Huxley

Without seeing any reason to believe that women are, on the average, so strong physically, intellectually, or morally, as men, I cannot…

— Thomas Huxley

What men need is as much knowledge as they can organize for action; give them more and it may become injurious. Some…

— Thomas Huxley

Though under-instruction is a bad thing, it is not impossible that over-instruction may be worse.

— Thomas Huxley

Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single…

— Thomas Huxley

The man who is all morality and intellect, although he may be good and even great, is, after all, only half a…

— Thomas Huxley

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

— Thomas Huxley

The world makes up for all its follies and injustices by being damnably sentimental.

— Thomas Huxley

That which endures is not one or another association of living forms, but the process of which the cosmos is the product,…

— Thomas Huxley

As I have already urged, the practice of that which is ethically best - what we call goodness or virtue - involves…

— Thomas Huxley

Science ... warns me to be careful how I adopt a view which jumps with my preconceptions, and to require stronger evidence…

— Thomas Huxley