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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
Certain
May
Trying
Saddening
Always
Whereas
Things
Unhappy
Never
Almost
Life
Happy
People
Making

More quotes by Thomas Huxley

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Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.
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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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I am content with nothing, restless and ambitious... and I despise myself for the vanity, which formed half the stimulus to my exertions. Oh would that I were one of those plodding wise fools who having once set their hand to the plough go on nothing doubting.
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The great thing in the world is not so much to seek happiness as to earn peace and self-respect.
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Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every conceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing.
Thomas Huxley
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In truth, the laboratory is the forecourt of the temple of philosophy, and whoso has not offered sacrifices and undergone purification there has little chance of admission into the sanctuary.
Thomas Huxley
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Education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature.
Thomas Huxley
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I wish you would let an old man, who has had his share of fighting, remind you that battles, like hypotheses, are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.
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It is far better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains.
Thomas Huxley
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To quarrel with the uncertainty that besets us in intellectual affairs would be about as reasonable as to object to live one's life with due thought for the morrow because no man can be sure he will alive an hour hence.
Thomas Huxley
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The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment... not authority.
Thomas Huxley
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I cannot but think that he who finds a certain proportion of pain and evil inseparably woven up in the life of the very worms, will bear his own share with more courage and submission.
Thomas Huxley
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If then, said I, the question is put to me would I rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessing great means and influence and yet who employs those faculties for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion-I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape.
Thomas Huxley
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Only one absolute certainty is possible to man, namely that at any given moment the feeling which he has exists.
Thomas Huxley
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Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.
Thomas Huxley
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All truth, in the long run, is only common sense clarified.
Thomas Huxley
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There is no greater mistake than the hasty conclusion that opinions are worthless because they are badly argued.
Thomas Huxley
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Though under-instruction is a bad thing, it is not impossible that over-instruction may be worse.
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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The only question which any wise man can ask himself, and which any honest man will ask himself, is whether a doctrine is true or false.
Thomas Huxley