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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.

Thomas Huxley

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Thomas Huxley
Age: 70 †
Born: 1825
Born: May 4
Died: 1895
Died: June 29
Anatomist
Anthropologist
Biologist
Carcinologist
Ichthyologist
Linguist
Naturalist
Paleontologist
Philosopher
Photographer
Physiologist
Lexington
Kentucky
T. H. Huxley
Huxley
People
Making
Certain
May
Trying
Saddening
Always
Whereas
Things
Unhappy
Never
Almost
Life
Happy

More quotes by Thomas Huxley

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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.
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The only people, scientific or other, who never make mistakes are those who do nothing.
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It is the first duty of a hypothesis to be intelligible.
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No slavery can be abolished without a double emancipation, and the master will benefit by freedom more than the freed-man.
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Education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature.
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It is far better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains.
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Friendship involves many things but, above all the power of going outside oneself and appreciating what is noble and loving in another.
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Better live a crossing-sweeper than die and be made to talk twaddle by a medium hired at a guinea a seance.
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Surely there is a time to submit to guidance and a time to take one's own way at all hazards.
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There is no sea more dangerous than the ocean of practical politics none in which there is more need of good pilotage and of a single, unfaltering purpose when the waves rise high.
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I have no faith, very little hope, and as much charity as I can afford.
Thomas Huxley
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Fact I know and Law I know but what is this Necessity, save an empty shadow of my own mind's throwing?
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Natural knowledge, seeking to satisfy natural wants, has found the ideas which can alone still spiritual cravings. I say that natural knowledge, in desiring to ascertain the laws of comfort, has been driven to discover those of conduct, and to lay the foundations of a new morality.
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Mathematics may be compared to a mill of exquisite workmanship, which grinds your stuff to any degree of fineness.
Thomas Huxley
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The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity.
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If a man cannot do brain work without stimulants of any kind, he had better turn to hand work it is an indication on Nature's part that she did not mean him to be a head worker.
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It may be well to remember that the highest level of moral aspiration recorded in history was reached by a few ancient Jews--Micah, Isaiah, and the rest--who took no count whatever of what might not happen to them after death. It is not obvious to me why the same point should not by and by be reached by the Gentiles.
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The results of political changes are hardly ever those which their friends hope or their foes fear.
Thomas Huxley
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It is a popular delusion that the scientific enquirer is under an obligation not to go beyond generalisation of observed facts...but anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond the facts, rarely get as far.
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There is far too much of the feeding-bottle in education and young people ought to be supplied with good intellectual food and then left to help themselves.
Thomas Huxley