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Thomas Huxley Quotes - Page 12

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I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic'.

I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic'.

Titles, Agnostic, Appropriate

'Collected Essays' (1893-94) 'Agnosticism'

No one can help another very much in these crises of life; but love and sympathy count for something.

Helping, Crisis

Thomas Henry Huxley, Leonard Huxley (1900). “Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley”

I cannot say that I am in the slightest degree impressed by your bigness, or your material resources, as such. Size is not grandeur, and territory does not make a nation. The great issue, about which hangs true sublimity, and the terror of overhanging fate, is what are you going to do with all these things?

Fate, Issues, Degrees

Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.260, Cambridge University Press

Oh devil! truth is better than much profit. I have searched over the grounds of my belief, and if wife and child and name and fame were all to be lost to me one after the other as the penalty, still I will not lie.

Children, Lying, Names

Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.357, University of Georgia Press

Within the last fifty years, the extraordinary growth of every department of physical science has spread among us mental food of so nutritious and stimulating a character that a new ecdysis seems imminent.

Character, Years, Growth

Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.66, University of Georgia Press

No man is any the worse off because another acquires wealth by trade, or by the exercise of a profession; on the contrary, he cannot have acquired his wealth except by benefiting others to the extent of what they considered to be its value.

Exercise, Men, Wealth

Only a scientific people can survive in a scientific future.

People

Whatever part of the animal fabric whatever series of muscles, whatever viscera might be selected for comparison the result would be the same the lower Apes and the Gorilla would differ more than the Gorilla and the Man.

Animal, Men, Would Be

Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.116, Cambridge University Press

Each such answer to the great question, invariably asserted by the followers of its propounder, if not by himself, to be complete and final, remains in high authority and esteem, it may be for one century, or it may be for twenty: but, as invariably, Time proves each reply to have been a mere approximation to the truth tolerable chiefly on account of the ignorance of those by whom it was accepted, and wholly intolerable when tested by the larger knowledge of their successors.

Ignorance, Twenties, Finals

Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.66, University of Georgia Press

The whole analogy of natural operations furnishes so complete and crushing an argument against the intervention of any but what are termed secondary causes, in the production of all the phenomena of the universe; that, in view of the intimate relations between Man and the rest of the living world; and between the forces exerted by the latter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of Nature's great progression, from the formless to the formed from the inorganic to the organic from blind force to conscious intellect and will.

Crush, Men, Views

"Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature". Book by Thomas Henry Huxley. Chapter 1, p. 28, 1884.

The sceptics end in the infidelity which asserts the problem to be insoluble, or in the atheism which denies the existence of any orderly progress and governance of things: the men of genius propound solutions which grow into systems of Theology or of Philosophy, or veiled in musical language which suggests more than it asserts, take the shape of the Poetry of an epoch.

Philosophy, Men, Infidelity

Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.66, University of Georgia Press

Science is nothing but trained and organized common sense differing from the latter only as a veteran may differ from a raw recruit: and its methods differ from those of common sense only as far as the guardsman's cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields his club.

Cutting, Science, Common Sense

"On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences" (1854)

I have never had the least sympathy with the a priori reasons against orthodoxy, and I have by nature and disposition the greatest possible antipathy to all the atheistic and infidel school. Nevertheless I know that I am, in spite of myself, exactly what the Christian would call, and, so far as I can see, is justified in calling, atheist and infidel.

Christian, Atheist, School

Letter to Charles Kingsley, mathcs.clarku.edu. May 05, 1863.

I really see no harm which can come of giving our children a little knowledge of physiology. ... The instruction must be real, based upon observation, eked out by good explanatory diagrams and models, and conveyed by a teacher whose own knowledge has been acquired by a study of the facts; and not the mere catechismal parrot-work which too often usurps the place of elementary teaching.

Education, Teacher, Children

Thomas Henry Huxley (1882). “Science and Culture: And Other Essays”

I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything especially as I am now so much occupied with theology but I don't see my way to your conclusion.

Too Much, Way, Possibility

Thomas Henry Huxley, Leonard Huxley (1900). “Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley”

Every living creature commences its existence under a form different from, and simpler than, that which it eventually attains.

Different, Form, Existence

Thomas H. Huxley (2013). “Man's Place in Nature”, p.74, Courier Corporation

Even in the important matter of cranial capacity, Men differ more widely from one another than they do from the Apes; while the lowest Apes differ as much, in proportion, from the highest, as the latter does from Man.

Men, Important, Doe

Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.83, University of Georgia Press

Size is not grandeur, and territory does not make a nation.

Doe, Territory, Size

Thomas Henry Huxley (1908). “Aphorisms and Reflections from the Works of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.110, Library of Alexandria

The only good that I can see in the demonstration of the truth of "Spiritualism" is to furnish an additional argument against suicide. Better live a crossing-sweeper than die and be made to talk twaddle by a "medium" hired at a guinea a séance.

Suicide, Argument, Guinea

Review in the Daily News on October 17, 1871. "Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley". Book edited by Leonard Huxley, Volume 1, p. 452, 1900.

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